Crypto market cap hits $3 trillion as Ether, Bitcoin surge on inflation fears
(Kitco News) The crypto space's combined market cap has hit $3 trillion as Ethereum pushed to new all-time highs and Bitcoin approached record levels.
On Monday, the overall market cap of cryptocurrencies had reached $3.03 trillion, according to data provided by CoinGecko.
The biggest crypto drivers were the top four cryptocurrencies — Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Coin, and Solana. Ethereum surged another 11.5% in the last seven days, Bitcoin rose 7.7%, and Binance Coin with Solana jumped 23.8% and 23.3%, respectively.
At the start of the new trading week, Ether hit a new record high of $4,790, while bitcoin approached its all-time highs and last traded at $66,098.20.
Overall, the crypto space has quadrupled in the last 12 months, showing the surging popularity and wider adoption of the digital space this year.
Bitcoin and Ether have also been gaining traction as inflation-hedge trades, supporting the current rally higher. On top of that, the recent introduction of bitcoin ETFs are attracting more institutional investors to the space.
"Bitcoin is trading slightly higher for a handful of reasons that include increased demand for inflation hedges, a much more friendly environment from New York City, and continued retail and institutional interest with new products," said OANDA senior market analyst Edward Moya. "All over the world, Bitcoin products are gaining more attention, from the U.S. and their new ETFs to Australia and their new spot Bitcoin ETF."
JPMorgan is now projecting a $73,000 price tag for bitcoin for 2022 and is not ruling out $146,000 for the longer term.
"The re-emergence of inflation concerns among investors during September/October 2021 appears to have renewed interest in the usage of bitcoin as an inflation hedge," JPMorgan analyst Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou said. "Digital assets are on a multi-year structural ascent, but the current entry point looks unattractive in our opinion for an investment horizon of 12 months as bitcoin appears to have returned to overbought territory."
According to JPMorgan, due to bitcoin's extreme volatility, moves above $146,000 and below $30,000 are both possible.
Panigirtzoglou also sees bitcoin's competition with gold as taking money flows away from the precious metal.
"Bitcoin's allure as an inflation hedge has perhaps been strengthened by the failure of gold to respond in recent weeks to heightened concerns over inflation," he said. "Considering how big the financial investment into gold is, any such crowding out of gold as an 'alternative' currency implies big upside for bitcoin over the long term."
In a weekend Twitter poll, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk asked his followers whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock worth $20 billion. He added: "I will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes."
Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock.
Do you support this?
The "Yes" vote ended up winning, with the Tesla stock sliding 3% on the day.
In the process, Musk also got a lot of replies telling him to buy more bitcoin for diversification purposes.
MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor tweeted: "If the goal is diversification, an alternate strategy to consider is converting the $TSLA balance sheet to a #Bitcoin Standard and purchasing $25 billion in $BTC. That would deliver diversification, inflation protection, & more upside for all investors in a tax-efficient manner."
If the goal is diversification, an alternate strategy to consider is converting the $TSLA balance sheet to a #Bitcoin Standard and purchasing $25 billion in $BTC. That would deliver diversification, inflation protection, & more upside for all investors in a tax efficient manner.
— Michael Saylor?? (@saylor) November 6, 2021 By Anna GolubovaFor Kitco News
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