Bitcoin's Potential $50K Surge Amid Pressure for Gensler to Approve ETF

• Bitcoin Bounces Back, Trading Above $43,000
• Projected Rally for Bitcoin
• Mixed Movements Among Major Tokens
• Meme Coins and SEI Network
• Market Impact of Futures Unraveling and SEC Speculations
• Expectations from CryptoQuant

Bitcoin Bounces Back, Trading Above $43,000

On Thursday, Bitcoin$42,260 -0.64% (BTC) exhibited a minor recovery, trading just above $43,000 during the European morning hours. This comes after a leverage flush led to a 7% loss on Wednesday in response to various analyst reports.

Projected Rally for Bitcoin

Lucas Kiely, the Chief Investment Officer at Yield App, predicts that Bitcoin could rally to as high as $50,000 within this month. Disregarding analysis to the contrary, Kiely is optimistic about the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) granting approval for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Mixed Movements Among Major Tokens

After experiencing more than a 10% drop in the last 24 hours, major tokens including Solana$104 5.03% (SOL), Ether (ETH), and Cardano's ADA began to stabilize early on Thursday. In the same timeframe, the Market Index (CMI), a comprehensive barometer of the market, suffered its largest loss in recent weeks with a 6% decline.

Meme Coins and SEI Network

Meme coins Dogecoin$0.091 -0.42% (DOGE) and Shiba Inu$0.000010 -2.05% (SHIB) experienced a decline, with losses exceeding 12%. Contrarily, Sei Network's SEI stood out as one of the few tokens showing positive movement, driven by intensifying buzz.

Market Impact of Futures Unraveling and SEC Speculations

The unraveling of futures late on Wednesday led to over $600 million in liquidations, the highest in a year. Open interest, referring to the number of unsettled futures contracts, fell by $5 billion, marking the greatest reduction in recent months.

This market downturn coincided with Matrixport, a research firm, expressing its expectation of the SEC rejecting all spot Bitcoin ETF proposals in January. Options analyst GreeksLive echoed these sentiments, citing weakened crypto mining stocks and sell-offs in several crypto-related U.S. stocks as factors fueling market skepticism.

However, Kiely of Yield App maintained a contradictory stance. He advised disregarding reports suggesting the SEC will not approve a Bitcoin spot ETF this month. I firmly believe that an approval from the SEC is still plausible in January. The world's largest asset managers are putting excessive pressure on Gary Gensler and the rest of the approval committee, making it increasingly difficult for them to postpone the decision, Kiely said. He further argued that unlike speculation of a massive sell-off event, Bitcoin could reach $50,000 by the end of January with the potential of a record-breaking surge within the year.

Expectations from CryptoQuant

Notwithstanding Kiely's optimism, firms like CryptoQuant, an on-chain data provider, anticipate Bitcoin to drop as low as $32,000 next month following the potential approval of a spot ETF. The rationale behind this prediction is that traders' unrealized profits are presently at a level that has historically ushered a correction, typically referring to a decline of 10% or more in cryptocurrencies.

Edited by Jonathan Stoker