Sheba Jafari, Goldman Sachs’ chief technician, believes bitcoin could reach close to $8,000, according to a message sent to the company’s clients on Monday, reported Business Insider.
Jafari noted bitcoin exceeded an equality target from its July low at $6,044, indicating the potential for an “impulsive advance” that could hit at least $7,941, the minimum target for the third of five waves. At that point, the price should achieve a position to watch for consolidation.
Bitcoin’s price was $7,201.2 late Tuesday morning, having posted a 3.19% drop in the prior 24-hour period, according to coinmarketcap.com.
CME, Fork Drive Gains
The price hit an all-time high of $7,592 early Monday after CME Group, one of the largest trading exchanges, announced plans to launch bitcoin futures trading by year’s end. The cryptocurrency has since gained more than $1,000.
Some analysts have said the SegWit2x bitcoin fork scheduled for Nov. 16 is also driving the price increase – temporarily. Trevor Koverko, CEO of Polymath, which specializes in cryptocurrency technology, said people could be purchasing bitcoin ahead of the SegWit2x fork in hopes of gaining additional bitcoin.
Koverko said smart traders are riding the pre-fork wave and will pull out before the fork.
The bitcoin community is divided over the SegWit2x fork since it could split bitcoin into two additional cryptocurrencies. There have already been two forks, Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold. Another fork would double the number of coins for existing bitcoin holders.
Fork Could Hurt Bitcoin Price
Willy Woo, a cryptocurrency and bitcoin analyst well known for his contribution to WooBull.com, has stated that the bitcoin price could suffer a major correction by the end of November, upon the SegWit2x hard fork.
Analysts including Woo and Tom Lee of Fundstrat have emphasized for months that the SegWIt2x hard fork could lead to a major price correction, as a small portion of bitcoin investors who have allocated their funds from alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) to bitcoin with the sole purpose of obtaining the newly created SegWit2x coins or B2X reallocate their funds back to altcoins.
Others have claimed it is unlikely that the price of bitcoin will suddenly crash after the fork, given that the market has had a relatively long period to prepare for the fork.
Bitcoin’s gains since June have steadily increased its dominance of the total cryptocurrency market, according to coinmarket.com. As of today, bitcoin accounted for 60.61% of all cryptocurrency, with Ethereum holding 14.34%. On June 15, bitcoin held 39.14% while Ethereum held 31.12%.