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This week’s price movements for (BTC), gold, and our stock pick Visa.
Bitcoin (BTC) has had a pretty dismal start to the new year. Coming into January, BTC was trading around $46,500 before reaching $48,000 by January 2. From there it fell to $45,500 by January 4 before dropping sharply on January 5, reaching $42,500 by January 6. BTC then channeled between that figure and $40,000 until breaking above $43,000 on January 12 where it is currently trading.
Despite its dismal start, experts are still depending on BTC’s infamous volatility, with some anticipating it nearly doubling in price. According to Swiss bank Seba CEO Guido Buehler, Bitcoin’s price could nearly double to $75,000 this year due to greater interest from institutional investors. “We believe the price is going up,” Buehler CNBC at the Crypto Finance Conference in St. Moritz, Switzerland. “Our internal valuation models indicate a price right now between $50,000 and $75,000,” he said. “I’m quite confident we are going to see that level. The question is always timing.”
Similar to weeks’ past, gold has been up and down over the new year so far. Gold started the new year trading around $1,830 before sharply dropping to barely $1,800 by January 3. Gold recovered a bit from there, hitting $1,815 on January 4 and back up to $1,830 the next day. However, another drop soon followed, this time reaching a more drastic $1,790 by January 6. Seeing some upward momentum at that point, the price of gold reached $1,800 by January 10, then back above $1,820 by the end of the next. Despite pushing back close to $1,830, gold is currently trading around $1,815.
Gold prices held to a tight range in the past day as investors anticipated economic cues and clarity on the Federal Reserve’s plans for an interest rate hike. However, prices were still close to their highest since January 5, after data showing U.S. inflation was within expectations, which prompted buying from investors who seemed to have priced in the Federal Reserve’s plans “Gold’s performance is in a way slightly disappointing, bearing in mind the pretty seismic collapse in the U.S. dollar … gold might have performed as one would expect it to, but hasn’t gotten to the big $1,835 per ounce figure, considering the inflation data,” independent analyst Ross Norman.
Visa has been trending rather positively since December. Starting out the month from roughly the $190 mark, by December 2 had started its upwards trajectory, reaching $214 by December 10. Although V traded down from there, reaching $208 by December 20, it spiked again the next day reaching $218 where it traded until the end of the year. In the new year, V bumped up to $224 by January 4. Despite falling below $208 since then, V recovered a bit and is currently trading just below $220.
According to a recent from Visa, nearly one-quarter of small businesses from nine countries said they have plans to accept digital currencies as payment in 2022. On the other hand, roughly three-quarters of businesses surveyed by Visa described accepting new forms of payments as “fundamental” to growth. Meanwhile, 13% of consumers from those countries said that they expect more retail outlets to accept crypto this year. Last month, Visa started offering crypto advisory services as part of its Consulting & Analytics.
