Just like that, mainstream media outlets have come out of the woodwork to cover Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. While such platforms often bring on cynical bears, entrenched in traditional finance, to bash the crypto narratives, today, CNBC called on Fundstrat Global Advisors’ resident BTC cheerleader Tom Lee to talk. And, surprisingly enough, Lee was, well, optimistic. But can you blame him? Bitcoin is up over 80% in the past six weeks after all.
Fundstrat Brings The Bitcoin Bull To CNBC
Like him or not, Fundstrat’s co-founder, Tom Lee, is persistent when it comes to being bullish on Bitcoin. Throughout the bear market, he was laughed at for touting bullish narratives, at many times claiming that the only route for Bitcoin was up.
And, at long last, he has been vindicated. Since the cryptocurrency market’s (seeming) bottom on December 14th, when BTC was trading at a rather sad $3,150, the asset has gone up 150%, sitting at a cool $8,100 as of the time of writing this. Let’s take a look at what Lee thinks.
During a segment with CNBC’s “Futures Now”, the Fundstrat executive explained that crypto’s premier conference, Consensus, is another sign that Bitcoin is actually out of the woods. He explains that such an event is important, as the industry needs to be brought together in a “much more higher-quality form [than the] scams and ICOs” that were all the rage in the previous rally. This wasn’t the only sign he used to accentuate that the so-called “crypto winter” is over.
Lee notes that Bitcoin holding above its 200-day moving average, a key technical level; developments on the financialization of cryptocurrency (Bakkt and ErisX to soon launch Bitcoin trading products); and long-time digital asset “hodlers” and “whales” bolstering their positions are a set of clear signs that the bear market has finally bitten the dust.
But most importantly, the researcher suggests that the fact that Bitcoin has begun to near $10,000 for the first time in over a year could just be the nail in the coffin for the bear market. He elaborates that as BTC edges closer to quintuple digits, there will be an “increasing chance that traditional, non-crypto investors, traditional financial investors, are going to start to look at crypto again.”
He adds that this demand and interest will be what will propel the cryptocurrency market to new highs eventually. Unfortunately, he didn’t give a date for this pseudo-prediction.
Not The Only Crypto Optimist
Lee is far from the only cryptocurrency optimist in this environment. Speaking to CNBC Africa’s Ran NeuNer in the latest episode of “Crypto Trader”, Travis Kling of Ikigai Capital Management claimed that he is 95% sure that the Bitcoin bottom is in.
Kling, a former institutional investor, opined that the increase in “reflexivity,” a term used to describe the positive feedback loop of financial markets (investment leads to a higher price, which then leads to more investment), in crypto markets will be a long-term bullish catalyst.
He explains that as BTC begins to flirt with key price levels, more and more investors will be drawn in, just due to simple human psychology and greed, leading to a long-term boom.
And from the realm of pure technical analysis, there is quite the telling sign that a bull market is finally on.
As popular researcher Willy Woo explained recently on Twitter, through Bitcoin’s lifetime, BTC holding above its 200-day moving average for around eight weeks has always been a sign that a bull market is on.
With this technical trend currently coming to fruition, with the asset holding above the aforementioned level for nearly six weeks now, he stated that he is 99% sure that “bull season” is on.
