Bitcoin’s price jumped by around $30 yesterday shortly after it became clear that Bitcoin Unlimited had overtaken segwit in hashrate share.
Although there may have been other factors, especially an increase in global uncertainty due to some of Trump’s policies, the timing of the sudden increase closely coincided with Bitcoin Unlimited surpassing segwit, standing today at 23% of the hashrate while segwit is at around 21%.

The new grassroots client has been gaining increasing support with ViaBTC, an open Bitcoin Unlimited pool, rising to 12% of the network hashrate in the past 24 hours, up from around 8-9%.

If Antpool or F2Pool start mining with Bitcoin Unlimited, its hashrate nears 40%. A significant psychological event which may raise anticipations for an upgrade of the network capacity that can currently only handle 2.5-3 transactions per second.

However, F2Pool’s co-founder, Wang Chun, told CCN that he has no plans to upgrade. Jihan Wu, Antpool’s founder, used to be very vocal in asking for a higher transaction capacity, but has not recently made any comments on BU.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/price-shoots-bitcoin-unlimited-surpasses-segwit/

Bullish Bitcoin Price Forecast Boosted by Technical and Macro Outlooks

After a precarious start to 2017, some investors feared a repeat of the 2013 crash which sent Bitcoin (BTC) prices plummeting over 80% from all-time highs. To us, it seemed like a great buying opportunity. Thus, our Bitcoin price forecast never wavered.

I expect that $2,000.00 can be achieved this year (more than double the current BTC price), barring any imposition of draconian measures placed on exchanges or trading.

There’s simply too many positive catalysts working in Bitcoin’s favor at the moment, the first of which has been in the news cycles for months: the devaluation of the Chinese yuan.

https://www.lombardiletter.com/bitcoin-2000-favorable-bitcoin-price-forecast-driven-solid-fundamentals/6656/

Some predict a speculative rush if SEC approves a new fund in March


If the Securities and Exchange Commission approves a bitcoin exchange-traded fund next month, it might set off a speculative rush into bitcoin.

An easily accessed ETF that tracks the value of bitcoin could cause money to flood into the fledgling bitcoin market, analysts say. Indeed, what some see as a chance for average investors to participate in one of the great financial innovations of recent years could set off a trading frenzy in an already wild market.

“My concern is that the launch of an ETF could lead to irrational exuberance if the price of bitcoin appreciates dramatically,” says Christopher Burniske, blockchain-products lead at money manager and research firm ARK Investment Management. ARK invests in Bitcoin Investment Trust, an ETF-like fund that already trades over the counter but currently is only available to wealthy investors.

wsj.com/articles/irrational-exuberance-for-bitcoin-etfs-1486350601