Bitcoin’s (BTC) price has been volatile this week, whipsawing between $59,980 (£48,222) and $64,500 on Friday alone, ahead of the upcoming “halving” event.
The Bitcoin halving, occurring approximately every four years, involves a reduction in the number of bitcoins rewarded to miners, creating scarcity and potentially impacting the cryptocurrency‘s price. It is expected to complete on either 19 or 20 April, with the block reward dropping from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC per block.
Previous halvings have spurred on price increases for the crypto-asset. On Friday morning in London bitcoin’s price had increased 5.3% over the last 24 hours.
Read more: What is bitcoin halving and how will it impact its price?
This halving comes after the approval of multiple spot Bitcoin exchange traded funds in January, which has seen billions of inflows into products launched by the likes of Blackrock (BLK) and Fidelity.
Oil prices have been on a wild ride this week, with volatility spurred on by rising tensions in the middle east.
Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate fell in tandem on Wednesday before spiking again on Friday as energy markets weigh Iran’s attack on Israel, and Israel’s air strikes in retaliation late on Thursday.
Read more: FTSE 100 LIVE: European stocks slump and oil rises as Israel retaliates against Iran
There have so far not been any reports of damage or casualties in Iran, according to Sky News.
Brent crude was trading at $87.90 per barrel on Friday while crude sat at $83.53. Both were up about 1% just after 9am.
Netflix (NFLX)
Netflix stock was trending almost 4.8% lower in premarket on Friday after it posted a disappointing second quarter revenue forecast.
Despite other positive numbers — such as a rise in operating income of 54% and additional 9.3m subscribers globally in the first quarter — management said net additions would slow in Q2 compared with Q1 due to “typical seasonality”.
Read more: Stocks that are trending today
Meanwhile, operating margin rose by seven percentage points to 28% and management raised its full-year margin guidance to 25%.
Gold briefly flirted with record highs again on Friday, jumping to $2,428 an ounce as geopolitical risk sends traders to haven assets. It is currently sitting at just above $2,404. The rally in this year alone due to multiple conflicts has seen gold’s price rise from just above $2,000.
“A clear geopolitical risk premium has been driving the market, though a simple metric of M1 to gold above ground implies $2,400 is about average,” said Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Finalto.
Watch: Bitcoin ETF boom won’t mimic previous retail investor-led rallies’ | The Crypto Mile
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