The State of the Market: Bitcoin rallied steadfastly over the weekend, briefly reaching a top at $7,426 before pulling back to trade in between $7,270 and $7,335 for the remainder of the weekend. The recent sustained gains have lifted sentiments across the cryptocurrency market and even altcoins are holding on to their gains. In other news, perma-bull, Tom Lee, remains adamant that Bitcoin will trade at $20,000 before the end of 2018 and a recent report from ICO advisory firm, Satis Group, forecasts the cryptocurrency market cap will exceed $1 trillion by 2021. Investors may also be wondering what is really behind the current pop in cryptocurrency prices as Tether (USDT) has sent $100 million USDT to Bitfinex again. Typically these infusions are linked to sharp increases in Bitcoin price but the impact is yet to be determined. Currently the cryptocurrency market capitalization stands at $236 billion.

1) Speaking to CNBC, Tom Lee said that bitcoin would possibly trade at $20,000 at the end of this year. He said this would be attributed to emerging ETFs and the asset’s strong performance. Additionally, he said the contributing factor would also be the decline of the US dollar due to the US conflict with countries like Iran, China, Turkey; as a result, the Federal Reserve will slow the policy on interest rate hike, making people resort to bitcoin and increase its prices. (Read More.)

2) The report released by the ICO advisory firm Satis Group has made the news cycle rounds and caused a lot of stir. From claiming many ICO’s and utility tokens will go bust while currency and privacy coins like Monero (XMR) will be the best performers, they also made some price predictions as to where the market is headed. One of the more near term predictions is that the cryptocurrency market will reach a total market cap valuation of $1 Trillion by 2021, indicating that the market will increase in value more than four times its current value of nearly $240 Billion over the next couple of years. (Read More.)

3) Most cryptocurrency investors are aware of the rather unique relationship between Tether (USDT) and BitFinex and the rumors of manipulation will begin to churn again as $100 million USDT are currently en route to Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange. Hundreds of millions of USDT were sent to various exchanges during the height of the 2017 bull run and researchers and regulators point to the ‘manipulation’ as the reason for BTC reaching an all high. The most recent transfers of USDT led to significant leaps in BTC price. A July 24 transfer was followed by a $800 movement and the most recent infusion (August 21) lead to a $650 pop in BTC price. It is yet to be determined what the impact of today’s transfer will be but traders will certainly be keeping a close eye on the charts. (Read More.)

Subscribe to the Berminal Brief Newsletter

Download Berminal for Free

The Berminal Website

Berminal Official Telegram

Berminal Twitter