Analysis Of The Recent Bitcoin Price Movement

Bitcoin has seen some stellar gains over the past week; particularly over the course of the last two days. Over the past seven days the price of BTC has rallied from below $4,400 to as high as $5,920 on Bitfinex early this morning. At the time of this writing Bitfinex is showing a price of $5,662. So what's going on? Why the $1,000 gain in just a week? Below I'll list a few factors that are playing a role in the recent rally.

Segwit2X
As the deadline for this controversial November scaling proposal nears, it seems that whatever your view, the news is bullish. It appears that F2Pool has stopped signaling support for the New York Agreement that would implement SegWit2X. This action seems to be part of a broader movement across stakeholders toward backing out of the agreement. There is no certainty that other pools such as AntPool and ViaBTC will follow suit but, as the likelihood of another hardfork decreases, those who have held their funds on the sidelines may be more willing to move back in. On the other hand, those who fully expect the SegWit2X hardfork to happen may be buying up more BTC in hopes of another windfall dividend like the one they received from Bitcoin Cash.

Goldman Sachs
In an article on October 2nd, CNBC announced that Goldman Sachs, a major U.S. investment bank, is looking into a new operation for trading bitcoin. The bank was quoted as saying, "In response to client interest in digital currencies, we are exploring how best to serve them in this space." While this is by no means a guarantee that the bank will enter the space, it does highlight the interest major players are taking in cryptocurrency.

Coinbase
Coinbase has just announced that they will begin offering instant buys in amounts up to $25,000. While this does little to change the fundamental value proposition of bitcoin itself, it is still good news that the largest U.S. exchange is responding to the surging demand and taking steps to accommodate it.