Bitcoin Price: 5 Things to Know for Crypto Markets This Week

Bitcoin (BTC) has consolidated gains nearer $8,000 — but does the coming week have in store for the asset leaving stocks in the dust?

After jumping 10% in a day last week, BTC/USD has managed to keep hold of its gains over the weekend. Cointelegraph considers the major factors which traders should keep an eye on to avoid a nasty surprise.

New alarm bells for stocks Stocks continue to move higher, and Bitcoin continues to move in line with stock market sentiment.

While reducing its correlation in recent weeks, Bitcoin still remains sensitive to major moves on Wall Street. This week, prices there continue to trend upwards, but all is not what it seems, analysts warn.

The warning that current swift gains could turn to losses capitalizes on existing concerns about the paradoxical status quo on markets. Despite millions of newly unemployed, small business implosions and trillions of dollars of money printing, stocks keep improving.

Oil prices lose big as trading begins Oil is steaming ahead with its protracted sell-off. In Asian morning trading on Monday, WTI plunged by almost 10%, while Brent slumped 3.2% to near $20 a barrel.

No respite seems in sight for a market hammered by unprecedented negative prices last week — demand is unlikely to pick up for several months, while storage facilities have all but run out.

Bitcoin is overall impacted less by oil’s issues than those of other markets.

The money printing machine keeps turning Central banks continue to pump more worthless cash into the stricken and increasingly “neo-feudal” economy.

On Monday, it was the Bank of Japan’s turn to announce a flood of paper, signaling it would buy unlimited bonds in order to incentivize borrowing.

Questions remain over whether the United States Federal Reserve and European Central Bank will follow suit, the former having already inflated its balance sheet to a record $6.6 trillion.

Bitcoin fundamentals steadily improve For Bitcoin network participants, meanwhile, the picture is increasingly — and verifiably — positive.

Hash rate has recovered well since it dipped following the March price crash, consolidating at around 115 quintillion hashes per second (h/s). According to estimates from Blockchain, this is just 7 quintillion h/s below all-time highs seen earlier last month.

Mining difficulty is also set for a healthy uptick of 3.2% at the next adjustment in around eight days’ time. This follows a larger 8.5% boost that Cointelegraph reported on previously.

Analyst dispels myths over May halving downturn It is now just over two weeks until the third Bitcoin block reward halving. At that point, Bitcoin’s block subsidy will drop from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC per block.

This reduces miner income significantly, while also drives up Bitcoin’s stock-to-flow ratio, as there will be fewer “new” Bitcoins created relative to the existing supply.

Some analysts have become worried that the drop in revenue will spark problems for miners, but the creator of the seminal stock-to-flow price model for Bitcoin now believes otherwise. “2012&2016 halving data shows that difficulty will NOT adjust downward, but will keep rising post halving,” a tweet from PlanB on Friday reads.

Bitcoin Price: 5 Things to Know for Crypto Markets This Week (4/27), CoinTelegraph, Apr 27