A Citibank senior analyst predicted that bitcoin could reach $318,000 by December 2021 in a report written for Citibank’s institutional clients, according to CoinDesk.
Thomas Fitzpatrick’s report was leaked on Twitter Friday (Nov. 13) by user “ClassicMacro,” who noted in a tweet, “there is no edge in guessing targets so far in time with TA. All we know is that price is likely to continue going up.”
Fitzpatrick, global head of CitiFXTechnicals, Citi’s market insight product, compared bitcoin’s movements to the gold market, which remained within a $20-$35 price range for 50 years before breaking out in 1971, according to CoinDesk.
The major price swings are “exactly the kind of thing that sustains a long-term trend,” said Fitzpatrick in the report, according to CoinDesk.
In other news, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) is researching the potential for innovation, as well as the inherent risks, in virtual assets, the SECP said in a paper published on Nov. 6.
In the paper, the SECP defined a virtual asset as “a digital representation of value that can be digitally traded, or transferred, and can be used for payment or investment purposes. Virtual assets do not include digital representations of fiat currencies, securities and other financial assets that are already covered elsewhere in the FATF Recommendations.”
The SECP also examined various regulatory measures in the paper. Potential approaches, it noted, are fitting it into current financial regulations, which could “in some instances even entail outright banning,” or following a “let-things-happen” approach, which focuses on supporting innovation and preventing overregulation.
The SECP focused on the second approach in the paper, noting that the “SECP aims to encourage innovative and beneficial ways to raise capital,” and “make larger financial inclusion a possibility.”
“The do-not-harm approach is highly cognizant of not letting overregulation stifle innovation, and supports finding the optimal balance between innovation, the concomitant risks and the wider safety of the financial system,” the paper stated.
Meanwhile, Binance on Monday (Nov. 16) announced that it is discontinuing the trading pair BGBP/USDC.
This will be the last trading pair for BGBP, the stablecoin linked to the pounds sterling, meaning it will no longer be tradeable. If users still have the coin after the trading ends, they can convert it to U.K. pounds using Binance’s Convert tool, with a 1:1 conversion ratio.
Binance is also ending the trading pairs AE/ETH, BLZ/BUSD, KMD/BUSD and NULS/ETH, but the individual assets can still be traded in other trading pairs.
A Binance representative told CoinDesk that BGBP is the exchange’s “first experiment” with a fiat-based stablecoin.
“It worked but the issuance/redemption process was not the most friendly for users,” the person told CoinDesk, and said that the company will recommend traders use its GBP fiat onramps for “better” service.
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