As stakeholders, players, and crypto wannabes ponder if increasing their stakes on Bitcoin, the world’s most popular crypto seems ideal now, despite the fact that it’s trading near a record high, Nairametrics decided to weigh in on some key fundamentals showing Bitcoin looks like a bargain.

With prices exceeding $18,000 for the first time since 2017, BTC looks poised to break its previous all-time high. More investors are holding bitcoin for wealth preservation.

READ: Bitcoin on high demand, hits 2-year high, trading $17,000

A recent report from Glassnode, revealed plummeting Bitcoin exchange balances support the narrative that investors intend to hold their flagship crypto more than ever before, taking into consideration that with the prevailing demand in play, and limited supply of Bitcoin, the price would most definitely go north.

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With prices exceeding $18,000 for the first time since 2017, $BTC looks poised to break its previous all-time high.

Meanwhile, plummeting #Bitcoin exchange balances support the narrative that investors intend to hodl.

Read more in The Week On-Chain 👇https://t.co/fRTVsO1tqM pic.twitter.com/3VQWgsvmGO

— glassnode (@glassnode) November 23, 2020

Bitcoin liquidity continues its downward trajectory, buttressing that the macro bitcoin is becoming scarce for open sale.

It is also important to note that Bitcoin has a circulating supply of 19 million coins and a max supply of 21 million coins, meaning there are about 2million left to be mined.

READ: How Crypto can curb Nigeria’s high unemployment rate

Taking into account that about 4 million Bitcoins have been lost forever as a result of BTCs owners dying, and their next of kin not having access to such cryptos, it is fair to say there are only about 15million BTC presently in circulation to cater for over 7 billion people fighting to have a stake in Bitcoins, meaning that as BTC becomes scarce and more popular, it becomes a matter of time that the crypto asset valuation will hit the roof.

READ: Ripple hits a big bang, gains 30%

Bottom line

It’s vital to consider the bias saying that as global financial regulators begin to implement their regulatory framework on cryptos, it could become a matter of months for global banks and multinationals to increase their buying pressures on BTC. Thereby, pushing the price beyond the reach of an average investor.

Tesla, the electric car automaker, has gained 500% in 2020 and has become by far the world’s most valuable automaker in the world, despite it producing far less than Volkswagen, Toyota, or General Motors.

The tech powerhouse is now less than $6 billion short of approaching the $500 billion market value, and extending its surge since reports struck Wall Street on Tesla making its S&P 500 debut on December 21, forcing index funds to buy billions of dollars of its share.

READ: U.S stock futures trade flat, Apple regains $2 trillion market value

Unsurprisingly, it became global investors’ choice amid its recent price action rising by 6% – showing a gain of over 6%. Tesla Inc. extended its rally at the most recent trading session ahead of its December debut in the S&P 500 (SPX), as it is now worth a market value of $494 billion.

READ: Nigeria spends N1.08 trillion to import used cars and motorbikes in one year 

Its market capitalization is higher than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of any African country, Nigeria – $448.1billion, South Africa – $351.4billion, Egypt – $303.2billion, Algeria – $169.98billion, Morocco – $118.7billion, Ethiopia – $96.12billion, Kenya – $95.5 billion, Angola – $94.6 billion, Ghana – $66.9 billion, Tanzania – $63.2 billion.

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What you should know

Now worth $494 billion, Tesla will increase the concentration of heavyweight companies within the S&P 500. It will be the 7th most valuable company within the index, just behind Berkshire Hathaway and ahead of Visa Inc., according to Refinitiv data.

READ: Crypto: UniSwap gives each owner over $2,000

• About a fifth of the car company’s shares is owned by its Chief Executive, Elon Musk and other insiders.
• The S&P 500 is weighted by the number of companies’ stocks available on the stock market.
• The car company’s influence within the benchmark will be slightly reduced, putting it in 8 positions, just behind Johnson & Johnson, with an equivalent of about 1% of the S&P 500 index.

Nigerian Stocks ended the previous week cumulatively on a bearish note.

What we know: The All-Share Index and Market Capitalization depreciated by 2.57% to close the week at 34,136.82 and N17.838 trillion respectively.

In the previous week, Nigerian Stocks had its bullish run halted arbitrarily on the bias that stock traders and investors intensified their profit, taking into account the significant amount of weak earnings recorded by Nigerian Banks.

It was unsurprising to see four Nigerian banks in the top 10 losers chart for the week, as investors fretted on such performance on the basis that Nigeria’s banking industry remains the most vibrant after Agriculture, Energy in Africa’s largest economy.

That said, In the coming week stock traders are expected to be very cautious amid recent macros showing Africa’s largest economy has dipped into a recession in Q3 as oil production dropped to a four-year low.

Abdul-Rasheed Oshoma Momoh, Head of Capital Market in TRW Stockbrokers Ltd, in a phone chat interview with Nairametrics, said Nigerian markets are presently playing out like a ping pong ball the momentum has slowed down for now.

More of consolidation now as investors buy into good stocks that have a light at the end of the tunnel. (Zenith Bank, UBA, GTBank, First Bank, Access Bank) taking into consideration he doesn’t see any new highs now till 2021.

Bottom- line: Profit taking is expected to remain at least in the near term, taking into consideration Nigeria is officially in a recession, meaning a lot needs to be done to get Africa’s biggest economy on its foot, as such development could trigger more profit-taking in spite of the positive trend playing relatively at Africa’s best-performing equity market.