A weekend rally in the price of Bitcoin helped push the overall cryptocurrency market to its highest level since mid-May, but industry experts still warn of more choppy waters ahead.
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Bitcoin climbed above $48,000 over the weekend, CNBC reported, citing data from Coindesk. That was its highest price since May 17. By early Monday morning, the price had settled closer to $47,000, which was still well above the sub-$30,000 level seen in recent weeks. The rise of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency helped push the overall crypto market above $2 trillion on Saturday for the first time since mid-May.
But Bitcoin’s price remains far below the record high of $64,000 it reached in April. And the digital currency market itself continues to face plenty of headwinds.
As previously reported on GOBankingRates, trading volumes at the largest crypto exchanges — including Coinbase, Kraken, Binance and Bitstamp — declined more than 40% in June, according to CryptoCompare, a provider of crypto market data. China has played a major role in the slowdown with its regulatory crackdown, which forced Bitcoin mining operations to close and move elsewhere.
Closer to home, the infrastructure bill passed by the U.S. Senate last week did not include proposed amendments on crypto tax reporting, which some considered a major blow for the crypto community, CNBC noted.
Jehan Chu, founder of cryptocurrency-focused venture capital and trading firm Kenetic Capital, said these “fundamental regulatory roadblocks” have “clipped the market’s wings” in the near term. But he remains bullish on Bitcoin’s longer-term prospects, saying that investors should expect a “significant pullback to sub-$30k levels, resetting the stage for a long steady march” to $100,000 next year.
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Meanwhile, fears about the crypto market gained even more steam last week on the news that hackers stole more than $600 million from interoperability protocol Poly Network Tuesday. On the bright side, those eventually returned nearly all of the stolen money.
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Bitcoin Rally Pushes Crypto Market Back Above $2 Trillion, But Should You Invest?
