Bitcoin prices jumped 7 percent on January 18 but are still a fair distance away from life-time high of $41,940 seen earlier in the month.
At the time of writing this copy, bitcoin was trading up 4.91 percent at $36,186.6. It touched a 24-hour high of $36,840.13 and a 24-hour low of $34,460.99.
The premier cryptocurrency has surged over 22 percent so far in 2020 but has fallen over 14 percent in the last seven days.
According to JPMorgan Chase, bitcoin prices have to "break out" above $40,000 levels to continue its upward journey. Unless the said levels are breached, the exodus of trend-following investors could hurt the cryptocurrency, said the investment bank which had given a lofty target $400,000 on bitcoin earlier in the month.
"The flow into the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust would likely need to sustain its $100 million per day pace over the coming days and weeks for such a breakout to occur," strategists at JPMorgan Chase said in a note.
Increased retail participation on the back of an influx of institutional money, a weaker dollar and expensive valuations of equities helped the cryptocurrency market surpass the $1-trillion mark for the first time earlier this month.
Also Read: British man who threw away a hard drive with 7,500 bitcoins is on a scavenger hunt 8 years later
Treading on the same lines, a recent poll conducted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Twitter showed that 79.9 percent of the responders saw digital currency as real money. This is in stark contrast to a poll taken by IMF a few years ago, where only 33.8 percent of the responders had given the seal of approval to cryptocurrencies.
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