Bullish Case

• Buy BTC/USD hoping that this trend will continue.

• Add a take-profit at $55,000.and a stop-loss at 50,000.

Bearish Case

• Set a sell-stop at 50,500.

• Add a stop-loss at 52,000 and a take profit at 49000.

The BTC/USD price crossed 52,000 for the first time as the relentless rally continues. Bitcoin price has already risen by more than 80% this year bringing its total market cap to more than $970 billion.

Institutional Demand

The difference between the current Bitcoin rally and the one in 2017 is that this one is primarily driven by huge institutions. As the price rises, the role of retail investors in the BTC industry will be relatively muted since very few people can afford its high price tag.

Recent data point to many large investors buying Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. For example, the total assets held by Grayscale Bitcoin Trust was at $20 billion last month. Today, the trust has more than $32 billion in assets.

In the past few months, several institutions have expressed interest in Bitcoin. Twitter has hinted that it will buy Bitcoin, which is highly likely considering that it shares a CEO with Square. Wall Street banks like JP Morgan (JPM) and Morgan Stanley (MS) have also expressed interest in the currency. MicroStrategy and MassMutual now own cryptocurrencies worth more than $1 billion.

Analysts believe that Tesla's (TSLA) $1.5 billion purchase was the most important event for Bitcoin (BITCOMP). That's because all CEOs have seen the remarkable rise of the company to become the biggest automaker in the world. As such, many are said to allocate a small portion of their funds to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

The Bitcoin price is also rising because of the upcoming stimulus in the United States. Some data points to the fact that many individual investors are buying cryptocurrencies using their stimulus funds. Therefore, with Congress considering a $1.9 trillion package, there is a likelihood that a substantial amount of these funds will go to Bitcoin.

BTC/USD Technical Outlook

The BTC/USD price has been in a strong upward rally after it crossed the important resistance at 42,000 in January this year. Since then, the pair has managed to cross all the vital resistance levels such as 45,000 and 50,000. It remains above the 50-period and 100-period smoothed moving averages. However, it also seems to be forming a rising wedge pattern on the four-hour chart. Therefore, while the overall trend is bullish, the pair may experience a pullback in the near term.