Many BTC bulls have gone silent since the drop in Bitcoin’s price this summer. But while some are calling for BTC to go lower, others believe we’re about to enter a new bull market.

Today, we look at bull markets, bear markets and potential Bitcoin price movements.

But first…

What Affects the Value of Bitcoin?

In truth, Bitcoin’s value may be more resilient compared to other digital currencies, and it’s the catalyst for most other digital assets to move up, or down. In the short-term, volatile macroeconomic conditions can move the entire space. For example, crypto prices fell following the move by China to ban BTC and other cryptocurrency mining.

Markets, in general, react (perhaps overreact) to news like the recent Ukraine-Russia conflict and the pandemic scare in 2020, which saw most markets dip, including Bitcoin.

Of course, like all markets, asset valuations move up and down. What’s notable is that blockchain technology is looking to be the future of many industries, not simply a virtual “currency.” This could mean the true potential of the blockchain may have yet to be exploited… or fully valued.

Today, 2022:

All the four-year cycle predictors that predicted Bitcoin to reach at least $100,000 last year were wrong. Instead, we got what technical analysts believe is an extended correction period. Even though it did break all-time highs in 2021, reaching $68,990, the market showed an expanding wave, which meant it would likely correct lower. It did, and now most metrics have reset to the bottoms, indicating that this current period may be near its end.

What happens next? Macro analysts state that the markets behave in five waves (three up, two down) during upward bull cycles. Some believe we’re now experiencing the fifth wave, with BTC dropping to around $20k.

Should this be confirmed, we may be near the end of a current bear market and potentially be on the verge of a new bull market. Of course, only time will tell.

Full Recovery, 2023-2024:  $50,000 – $80,000?

The previous bear market in crypto lasted for less than a year before the price bottomed. With the four-year cycle looking like it could be near its end, we might see an extended bear market recovery. During the last bear market, Bitcoin prices dropped to 20% of their high before they started moving up. However, the recovery movement was quick, as it more than doubled its value by the end of 2018.

In this case, where BTC has fallen roughly 70% from its all-time highs, we may see a slower bear market recovery. Assuming BTC goes into a lengthened recovery scenario, we might see Bitcoin slowly rise to the $50-$80,000 range before the next true bull market.

The Next Big Bull Cycle 2025-2029: The Push to $1 Million?

For various reasons, many top analysts like ARK Investment Management, Cathie Wood and Arthur Hayes (and more) believe that Bitcoin reaching $1 million is a real possibility. Once its adoption becomes more widespread than it is today, the chances of this happening become greater. Already there are Bitcoin ATMs, a number of big corporations accept Bitcoin as payment and El Salvador, for example, has adopted Bitcoin as legal tender, becoming the first nation to do so. As acceptance grows, so could the value of BTC.

The use case for Bitcoin and crypto in general, has also been increasing. In this cycle, we’ve seen the rise of staking, NFTs, social tokens, multiple blockchains and DeFi smart contracts, to name a few. Crypto is quickly becoming entangled in how we view and live our lives, like many other technologies in the past have…like the internet.

And like the internet was in the 1990’s, blockchain technology may not be fully understood, or embraced for some time.

In 1995, Robert Metcalfe famously said in an InfoWorld magazine interview, “I predict the internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.”

Of course, the very opposite happened, and today, InfoWorld is ONLY published online.

2030, Another Bear Market? $350,000

$350,000 would be a noticeable drop from $1 million but would still be quite a leap from where we are today. The market will go through its usual ebbs and flows and prices will fluctuate. But there is an argument that it may never reach that point, that Bitcoin may one day move less like a volatile stock, and more like a traditional currency.

If much of the world has adopted crypto by 2030, we may never see the price swings that we have experienced in the last three cycles. However, if we do remain in these cycles, and it takes longer for BTC to gain widespread acceptance, we could experience the beginning of yet another strong bear market by 2030.

Either way Bitcoin is truly revolutionizing the economy, personal finance and our future

 

Sources:

Bitcoin Price Prediction, https://changelly.com/blog/Bitcoin-price-prediction/

Bitcoin predictions, https://www.Bitcoinprice.com/predictions/

Bitcoin price prediction, will it survive? https://www.cryptopolitan.com/Bitcoin-price-forecast/

https://twitter.com/TechDev_52/status/1531644950215020546

10 things you should know about bear markets, https://www.hartfordfunds.com/practice-management/client-conversations/bear-markets.html

Bitcoin price history, https://time.com/nextadvisor/investing/cryptocurrency/Bitcoin-price-history/

Cryptocurrency bubble, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency_bubble#2017_boom_and_2018_crash