The current trading price on both Bitfinex and Bitstamp is over $2835, and has gained much of its momentum over the past several hours.
While at this point there may be some increased investment in the hopes of a resolution to the transaction times and fees, much of the investment that the market is seeing is likely speculation. I remember 3 days after the last run started to retreat the price hit a low of 1750 on Bitstamp and under 1500 USD on Poloniex's BTC/USDT market. I'm not saying that a retreat is likely anytime in the near future, but the possibility of that is relatively high. While there isn't any really substantive way to determine when a run will break, at some point the run will be bound to make some type of retreat, but it may not be for some time.
Although this increased investment and therefore price level in Bitcoin recently has made me very cautious about Bitcoin's stability, the increased interest definitely excites me because it will undoubtedly lead to more interest in the cryptocurrency market as a whole. While speculation has always been the dominant factor when it has come to cryptocurrency investing, it is likely we will begin to see abundant capital waiting for any projects that are able to handle it. What I mean by this is that a cryptocurrency that is practical and tackles some of the real world situations that blockchain technology can improve. A project with practical use cases, or even the ability to support real world use cases, will likely see increasing support over the following years. Regardless of whether or not you think Ethereum will succeed or fail, the increased investment and interest in the project recently insinuate that individuals are actively searching for blockchain projects with more practical use cases.
Will this Bitcoin run continue?
While I don't personally believe that these price levels are sustainable in the long term, I would not be surprised in the slightest if Bitcoin continued to gain support and momentum for some time. While I personally believe that the price is bound to retreat back to a more practical and sustainable price level at some point, there have been so many instances over the past several months where the price will break the previous All Time High only a few weeks after breaking it previously. While the price run may stop, it is really looking like it is likely going to continue for at least a little while. Investing at these price levels is pretty risky in my opinion, and I strongly recommend that you utilize stop orders and other safegaurds if you do choose to speculate. I really think that this run could easily see another 5% in gains, but then again that is just based upon Bitcoins behavior in the past several runs it has made.
While I have been holding my excess holdings in USDT instead of Bitcoin over the past several weeks, I chose to buy back in earlier today at a 2605 price level and am already up over 5% even at Poloniex's prices. While I don't plan to hold this position long term, I intend to hold it until the run appears that it is beginning a significant retreat. This is easier said then done, but I have actually has good success with this tactic in the past.
I hope you enjoyed this post and I urge you to comment any input you may have. Thanks for reading!
Of course it did break over 3000 sometime after this post. It's both scary to be in and scary to be out.
Last night after midnight in Miami I hit the Market Cap refresh just one more time and was shocked to see it at something like 2,998.10. I took a quick screen shot and dithered doing something else for awhile and the next time I checked it was indeed over 3 thousand. But before I went to bed maybe an hour later there had already been a sell off and it was at 2,850 approx. Very much relieved this morning that things are stable.
Your advice is good. It's even harder to handle euphoria than it is depression. Consider them both as impostors.
Ah great input, and I definitely agree that euphoria is harder to control, and definitely more potentially 'dangerous', than depression. If things aren't going my way and I'm constantly loosing, then I always play it very conservative. But its very easy to get caught up in emotions and enter into a position that you later regret. Thanks for the insightful comment!
It will be over $5000 at a new high, I think it will level out around that area for a bit.
I would highly recommend to hold that BTC long.