Bitcoin peaks above $8000, loses momentum amid profit-taking

• The BTC/USD pair refreshes all-time high at $8030 on Friday.
• Profit-taking ahead of the weekend caps the upside.
• The pair adds more than $1500 for the week.

After closing the first four days of the week with substantial gains, the BTC/USD pair pushed higher to a new record high at $8030 before bulls ran out of breath. At the moment, the pair is trading at $7800, losing $60 on the day.

Commenting on this week's rally, "...the rally is driven by a resurgence in interest and viability for the SegWit2x hard fork. Despite the fact that it was called off, there is still some group of people that will follow through with the intended fork. As a result, I believe some capital is rotating out of other crypto-assets and into bitcoin to make sure they receive coins on both sides of the fork," Spencer Bogart, head of research at Blockchain Capital, told Bloomberg in an email.

Despite today's retreat, the pair rose more than 40% following last week's deep correction and this move was accompanied by an upsurge in trading volumes. Many experts think that with Wall Street giants such Goldman Sachs showing interest in digital currencies, institutional fund flow into the cryptocurrency market is likely to fuel new rallies in the near-future. Earlier this month, Sheba Jafari, the vice president of the Goldman Sachs FICC market strategies team, predicted that bitcoin would rise towards the $8000. "The market has shown evidence of an impulsive rally since breaking above 6,044. Next in focus $7,941. Might consolidate there before continuing higher,” Jafari told investors in a note.

Technical outlook

In an article written for coindesk.com, FXStreet analyst/editor Omkar Godbole noted, "Bitcoin looks set to rise above $8,000 and test $$8,187 (161.8 percent Fibonacci extension level of the move from the Jul. low – Aug. high – Sep. low). Only a break below $6,457 (61.8 percent Fibonacci retracement level) would signal a short-term bearish trend reversal."