After a fairly lackluster performance over the last four weeks, bitcoin investors may have something to cheer coming into Christmas as the cryptocurrency surged to its highest level in a month today.

For the first time since late November, bitcoin passed $7,600, up over $1,000 from a $6,538.01 Dec. 18, bitcoin’s lowest price since May, potentially signaling the return of a bull market.

The exact reason why bitcoin is heading up is open to speculation, but at the very least market sentiment may have changed, with investors seeing bitcoin as a buy as it slumped to lower levels during December.

As always, forecasts are all over the place. On the more conservative side, Amsterdam Stock Exchange trader Michaël van de Poppe predicts the outlook for the week ahead is positive and said he wouldn’t be surprised if bitcoin pushed through $7,800 to $8,000 late in the week.

$BTC #BITCOIN

Green zone held for support here, which is the range low.

Currently at potential local resistance. Wouldn't be surprised with continuation of ranging for the coming days, before we make another push to $7,800-8,000 resistances later next week.

All in all, good. pic.twitter.com/vyumXpruOh

— Crypto Michaël (@CryptoMichNL) December 22, 2019

Mike McGlone, the senior commodities strategist for Bloomberg Intelligence, sees bitcoin rising to $10,000 in the new year, noting that “bitcoin should continue to advance in a consolidating bull market, in our view, with maturation of the first-born crypto in the next decade the primary distinction vs. the current one.”

Others are predicting even higher prices at least in the next couple of years. Venture capitalist Tim Draper is predicting bitcoin will surge to $250,000 by the end of 2022 or 2023, with the rally starting in May 2020 following the “halving event.” The bitcoin “halving” is a process wherein the reward for mining bitcoin is halved, making the production of new coins more difficult. Traditionally when this has occurred, bitcoin’s price has surged.

But there are some concerns. As NewsBTC reported, the positive sentiment around bitcoin isn’t being reflected in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Bitcoin Futures data. The data shows that institutional traders such as hedge funds and money managers are still overwhelmingly net short on bitcoin, meaning they’re bearish on its price in the short term.

But for the time being, at least, there’s not yet a repeat of late 2018, when bitcoin’s price slid constantly until bottoming out in February this year.

Image: Pxhere