As bitcoin closes in on $9,600, gold surpasses $1,900 and DeFi liquidity steadily grows.

Gold is on the brink of an all-time high, up 0.80% Friday, at $1,901 per ounce. Sweden-based over-the-counter bitcoin trader Henrik Kugelberg sees gold nearing its all-time high as a positive for the worlds oldest cryptocurrency. Bitcoin will pass $20,000 in a surge. I suspect a new normal discounted bitcoin price will be around $15,000 in 2021, like it has been around $9,000 in 2020.

Bullish bitcoin traders love to talk about gold, since they see similarities between the yellow metal and the cryptocurrency. I think we are just a couple weeks or months out from a strong continuation on bitcoin as gold reaches $1,900 today, said William Purdy, a New York-based equity options and crypto trader.

Indeed, golds jump this week occurred as bitcoin eked gains and the S&P 500 U.S. stock index performance was back to being flat for 2020.

Kugelberg is pessimistic on stocks for the balance of 2020. I believe there will be at least a 30% drop in stocks on average at the latest in Q4. So where to go? To real assets with lasting value, said Kugelberg. He mentioned gold, bitcoin and property as real assets.

Bitcoin bulls have momentum on their side for now, said Alessandro Andreotti, an Italy-based over-the-counter bitcoin trader. The crypto market is likely to be heading towards a bullish continuation from here.

Within crypto, ether is doing even better than bitcoin this week. ETH/BTC, that is, ether priced in bitcoin, has seen a jump in the past few days.

Ether prices have increased almost 12% against bitcoin, said Aaron Suduiko, a research analyst for cryptocurrency exchange OKCoin. It will be interesting to see whether any trends develop in the event that more DeFi projects continue to grow.

Uniswap crosses $100 million in liquidity

The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, ether (ETH), was up Friday trading around $283 and climbing 3.6% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. EDT).

The recent gains in ether are due to the on-going thematic chatter on social media around new DeFi projects that have been showing considerable strength, said Purdy, the equity options and crypto trader. Indeed, Uniswap, a decentralized exchange (DEX), for trading various DeFi project tokens, surpassed $100 million in liquidity Friday.

Instead of order books, Uniswap uses liquidity pools that investors can stake cryptocurrency into and profit or yield from trading fees on the DEX. This liquidity is what enables Uniswap traders to quickly exchange between ether and various Ethereum-based ERC-20 tokens, with total daily volume reaching $71 million per day, according to data aggregator Dune Analytics.

Other markets

Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are mostly red Friday. Notable winners as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. EDT):

Notable losers as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. EDT):

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Market Wrap: Bitcoin Near $9,600 as Gold Hits High, Uniswap Liquidity Over $100m - CoinDesk - CoinDesk