A senior analyst at U.S.-based financial giant Citibank has penned a report drawing on similarities between the 1970s gold market and bitcoin.
The whole of bitcoinâs existence has been characterized by major price swings, âexactly the kind of thing that sustains a long-term trend,â said Thomas Fitzpatrick, global head of the companyâs CitiFXTechnicals market insight product, in his report solely intended for the bankâs institutional clients.
The report was first leaked to the cryptocurrency community by Twitter user âClassicMacroâ in a tweet on Saturday, noting Fitzpatrick is âa big fan of moon targets.â
Fitzpatrick pointed to bitcoinâs weekly chart and used technical analysis (TA) of prior highs and lows to determine a target of $318,000 by December 2021.
âThis kind of technical analysis is of little value,â ClassicMacro commented in his tweet. âThere is no edge in guessing targets so far in time with TA. All we know is that price is likely to continue going up.â
The Citibank executive drew on bitcoinâs 2010-2011 âexponential moveâ as being âvery reminiscentâ of the 1970 gold market. Gold had experienced 50 years of a constricted $20â$35 price range before a breakout occurred after a change in fiscal policy by the Nixon administration in 1971.
See also: Bank of England Official Balks at Shielding Banks Against Digital Currencies: Report
A decoupling of gold from fiat currencies, the COVID-19 pandemic and the desire for central banks to pursue aggressive quantitative easing policies could lead to future explosive price growth in bitcoin, according to Fitzpatrick.
âReaders loves this,â commented ClassicMacro. âWhat matters here is Citiâs clients being exposed to the bitcoin moon.â