$2,600: Bitcoin Price Chases Its June High, Hard Fork Notwithstanding

Bitcoin continued its rebound today, gaining 7.6 percentage points in the last 24 hours, heading for its June highs, having seemingly overcome fears about the impending August 1 hard fork. The $2,595.37 price earlier today gave bitcoin a $42 billion market capitalization.
Today’s bitcoin gain brings a hefty recovery to Sunday’s recent low point at $1,931. Bitcoin’s market cap has gained 30% since Sunday’s $31.77 billion figure. The market cap was close to $50 billion in mid-June when the price was near $3,000.

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Bitcoin is leading a crypto market rebound, as most cryptos are on an upward trend. Billion-dollar cryptos Ethereum, Ripple and Ethereum Classic were exceptions, posting losses under 1 percentage point.

Crypto Market Recovers
​The market cap of all cryptocurrencies is now back above $90 billion, compared with a mere $68 billion on Sunday.
The jump today could be linked to monetary policies in Europe, judging by the close timing. The European Central Bank president, Mario Draghi, gave a press conference on monetary policy that is influencing the forex markets, according to Finance Magnates.
Draghi said the ECB is leaving quantitative easing and interest rates unchanged for now. But it will discuss how to proceed with its QE program in the fall. As he was speaking, the euro jumped 0.5% against the U.S. dollar.

Bitcoin Shores Up Crypto Market Share
The surge has enhanced bitcoin’s share of the total crypto market cap. Prior to today’s gain, bitcoin yesterday held 45.33% of the market compared to Ethereum’s 24.9 percent. Today’s figures were not available from coinmarketcap as of this report. Bitcoin’s share has increased since then, given its superior price performance in the last 24 hours.
After reaching an all-time high in mid-June, bitcoin corrected 20% as the debate over scaling came to a head. For now, it appears that the majority of the blockchain community (by hash power) has agreed to adopt the SegWit protocol, which should be enough to avoid a hard fork and eventual chain split on August 1.

Goldman Bullish On Bitcoin
Goldman Sachs says bitcoin is poised to re-test the $3,000 level and could go as high as $3,700 in the not-too-distant future. In a note to clients, head of technical strategy Sheba Jafari said the digital payment system’s recent swing lows have the potential to “act as strong support” in the short term. She added that “the balance of signals appears to be shifting more to a positive tone.”
Just two weeks earlier, Jafari predicted a large drop in bitcoin as prices retreated from record levels.