According to\u00a0data by TradingView, on crypto exchange Bitstamp, Bitcoin traded in the range $35,520 (at 00:00 UTC) \u2013 $37,691 (at 23:59 UTC) on Wednesday (February 3).<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/cryptoglobe.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com\/2021\/02\/TV-Chart-BTCUSD-on-Bitstamp-One-Day-4-Feb-2021--1280x763.png\")
<\/p>\n
As for today (February 4), on Bitstamp, Bitcoin had its intraday high of $38,721 at 08:28 UTC. <\/p>\n
According to data by CryptoCompare, currently (as of 10:47 UTC), BTC-USD is trading around $37,724, which means that Bitcoin\u2019s market cap stands roughly at $702 billion. The Bitcoin price is up 4.67% in the past 24-hour period and up 30.20% in the year-to-date (YTD) period.<\/p>\n
Popular crypto analyst and trader Micha\u00ebl\u00a0van de Poppe had this to say about Bitcoin\u2019s latest price action:<\/p>\n
Crypto analyst Scott Melker says that\u2013 depending on how things go today \u2014 the Bitcoin price could be heading toward $63,400:<\/p>\n
As for the Reddit crowd, which has been helping to pump XRP and Dogecoin (DOGE) recently, there are some signs that they might be getting interested in investing in Btcoin:<\/p>\n
Although there are some who say that that the current high prices of stocks and cryptoassets suggests we are witnessing a bubble that could burst at any time, macroeconomist and crypto analyst Alex Kr\u00fcger\u00a0argues that the current prices are appropriate given the amount of quantitative easing (or \u201cmoney printing\u201d) by the world\u2019s major central banks in the past one year period.<\/p>\n
With regard to price targets for Bitcoin, Mike McGlone, Senior Commodity Strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence (BI), Bloomberg\u2019s\u00a0research arm\u00a0on the Bloomberg Terminal,\u00a0said in the February 2021 edition of Bloomberg\u2019s Crypto Outlook report:<\/p>\n
\u201cBitcoin\u2019s price-discovery stage points to the next threshold vs. gold, around 100x an ounce, as its upward trajectory has legs. The benchmark crypto was initially capped at 1x until 2017, then 10x until December as the dichotomy between the Bitcoin haves and have-nots quickly narrows.<\/em> <\/p>\n \u201cAbsent a major technology glitch, old-guard gold allocators are primarily at risk if the crypto becomes a reserve asset and Bitcoin as 1-5% of one\u2019s investable assets becomes increasingly prudent. About $30,000 is Bitcoin\u2019s support level vs. $50,000 initial target resistance. The broader crypto market is more speculative and increasingly subject to Bitcoin.<\/em>\u201c<\/p>\n Bitcoin\u2019s Taproot Upgrade<\/strong><\/p>\n According to a report by Coindesk published yesterday, \u201cmany of Bitcoin\u2019s most active stakeholders have just about nailed down the activation method for Taproot, the Bitcoin software\u2019s biggest upgrade in years.\u201d<\/p>\n Taproot is \u201ca proposed Bitcoin protocol upgrade that can be deployed as a forward-compatible soft fork\u201d that expands Bitcoin\u2019s \u201csmart contract flexibility\u201d by \u201ccombining the Schnorr signature scheme with MAST (Merklized Alternative Script Tree) and a new scripting language called Tapscript.\u201d<\/p>\n The Coindesk report went on to say:<\/p>\n \u201cIn a public meeting on Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Tuesday, Bitcoin developers, miners, business professionals and enthusiasts hashed out the specifics of how to package the Taproot upgrade into an update \u2013 and how to activate it once the code has been shipped.<\/em>\u201c<\/p>\n Upcoming Bitcoin Trusts<\/strong><\/p>\n On Wednesday (February 2),\u00a0Bitwise Asset Management, which is a leading cryptoasset manager with over\u00a0$700 million\u00a0in assets under management (\u201cAUM\u201d), announced that it has \u201cbegun the regulatory process to allow shares of the Bitwise Bitcoin Fund to trade on OTCQX.\u201d<\/p>\n Its approval would mean that \u201cshares of the fund would be available for trading in traditional brokerage accounts and for custody with many traditional custodians.\u201d<\/p>\n Bitwise President\u00a0Teddy Fusaro had this to say:<\/p>\n \u201cWe are tremendously excited to take the Bitwise Bitcoin Fund down the path recently taken by the Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund (OTCQX:\u00a0BITW),\u201d said Bitwise President\u00a0Teddy Fusaro. \u201cWe have been managing this fund since 2018, offering investors a cost-effective, convenient, and secure means of gaining investment exposure to bitcoin, and are excited to potentially see shares of the fund quoted on OTCQX.<\/em>\u201c<\/p>\n Bitwise says that this fund \u2014 which was opened for private placements by U.S. accredited investors in\u00a0December 2018 \u2014 \u201ccharges a 1.5% expense ratio, which includes costs related to custody, tax, accounting, and management fees, lower than competing products.\u201d<\/p>\n Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise, stated:<\/p>\n