The recent price levels of Bitcoin stand in stark contrast to the market highs of nearly $20,000 seen this past December. Many Bitcoin nay-sayers have seized on this opportunity to proclaim the ”death of Bitcoin” or similar statements. However, CNBC’s Brian Kelly has now stated that the current market sentiment does ”by no means” constitute a ”funeral for Bitcoin”.

This bullish statement comes as several Bitcoin non-believers have pointed to the current price of Bitcoin as a sign that the cryptocurrency is losing steam. At the time of writing, the price of Bitcoin is currently $5925, which is admittedly a far cry from the currency’s highs of around $20,000 in December.

Nonetheless, a Bitcoin price of $5925 still represents year over year gains of more than 100%. This is one of the reasons which Brian Kelly pointed out in the CNBC segment Fast Money this past Friday, as highlighted that Bitcoin is currently trading at the same level as it did in November of last year. One year ago, the price of Bitcoin was instead around $2,500.

Kelly also pointed out that the current market sentiment would seem to be nearing lows, which would suggest that a trend reversal is likely imminent. Moreover, Kelly pointed to the fact that the Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA) has issued so-called business improvement orders to six of the country’s cryptocurrency exchanges.

This would seem to suggest that Japan is making strides towards regulating and improving the conditions for the nation’s cryptocurrency exchange, which should ultimately lead to a more attractive business climate for crypto exchanges. Kelly admitted that whilst this could be ”a little tough” in the short-term, it will make the exchanges more stable and robust in the long term.

Kelly also brought up Mt. Gox’s recent announcement that customers will be reimbursed, and that the company would initiate civil rehabilitation proceedings. This ends an extended period of uncertainty following the exchange’s $473 million hack in 2013, which drove the cryptocurrency exchange to bankruptcy.

Moreover, the website 99Bitcoins has compiled the full list of times that Bitcoin has been ”declared dead”. The death of Bitcoin has been announced 319 times, with the most recent being published yesterday. This would certainly lend some credence to the certainty with which Kelly stated that the current market sentiment is not in any way a ”funeral for Bitcoin”.

Image Source: “Flickr”