On Monday (June 22), Bitcoin surged above $9,700 following an unconfirmed report by Coindesk that online payment solution provider PayPal is preparing to offer in the near future direct buying and selling of crypto to its 325 million users.
One unnamed source told Coindesk that he/she expected PayPal to launch this feature within the next three months.
Coindesk’s report was published around 17:00 UTC on June 22.
According to data from CryptoCompare, an hour earlier, Bitcoin was trading around $9,482. As you can see from the 24-hour BTC-USD price chart below, by 21:05 UTC on June 22, i.e. approximately four hours after Coindesk’s report got published, the Bitcoin price had surged above the $9,700 level (for the first time since June 11):
Tom Shaughnessy, Co-Founder of crypto-focused research and consulting boutique Delphi Digital believes that if this rumor is indeed true, then “eBay will be next.”
According to CNBC, on Friday (June 19), in a note to clients, Goldman Sachs “updated its three-, six- and 12-month gold price forecasts to $1800/1900/2000/toz from $1600/1650/1800/toz and maintained its long December 2020 gold trading recommendation.”
The note reportedly said:
“However, as we have argued in the past gold investment demand tends to grow into the early stage of the economic recovery, driven by continued debasement concerns and lower real rates…
“Simultaneously we see a material comeback from EM consumer demand boosted by easing of lockdowns and a weaker dollar.”
CNBC’s report also mentioned that HSBC Chief Precious Metals Analyst James Steele said in a note on the same day that “the broad economic recovery will inevitably weigh on gold, but the fundamental drivers of gold prices should be the low yield environment, substantial fiscal and monetary stimulus and the inflationary impact on asset prices.”
Apparently, Steele also says that the latest India-China border tensions could also act as a positive catalyst for gold:
“The two most populous nations in Asia are also the world’s two largest gold importers and consumers. Further escalation in risks could prompt greater gold purchases.”
What many people in the crypto space seem to believe is that the arguments made last Friday by Goldman Sachs and HSBC in support of gold could easily apply to Bitcoin since they view the latter as a digital version of the former.
As for Ethereum (ETH), the second most valuable cryptoasset by market cap, it is currently trading at $242.74, up 3.24% in the past 24-hour period:
More interestingly, in the past three-month period, the Ethereum price has increased 78.11% against USD (compared to a 43.81% increase for the price of Bitcoin during the same period).
Among fans of Ethereum, there are some who are a little disappointed with Ethereum’s performance when they compare it against the huge triple-digit percentage gains (against USD) enjoyed by quite a few of the tokens belonging to the popular DeFi projects, such as Aave (LEND), Compound (COMP), and Thorchain (RUNE).
However, the true Ethereum HODLers argue that it is only a matter of time before Ethereum starts benefiting from the rise in popularity of DeFi (especially last week’s frenzy around COMP and yield farming).
Here are a couple of examples:
There's a lot of excitement around new DeFi tokens. Reminder that most of that collateral locked up across those platforms is in #Ethereum.
As that outstanding ether supply comes down and demand from DeFi platforms hits escape velocity, $ETH will rally hard.
— John Todaro (@JohnTodaro1) June 18, 2020
ETH clearly up next for a rally after mainstream notices DeFi and uses ETH as a proxy for exposure
imvho
— Vance Spencer (@iam__vance) June 19, 2020
Every single cent of profit that I make from yield farming is going straight into buying more ETH.
I know many others who are also doing the same thing.
Few understand this.
— Anthony Sassano | sassal.eth 👨🌾 (@sassal0x) June 21, 2020
Featured Image by “WorldSpectrum” via Pixabay.com
