A prediction regarding the price of Bitcoin (BTC) is circulating these days that is rather optimistic.
Nonetheless, before analyzing it, it is necessary to give it some context, otherwise it is difficult to comprehend why it should be regarded as particularly optimistic.
The price forecast according to Bitcoin’s cycles
Bitcoin (BTC) has a fairly accurate and predictable cycle.
Nonetheless, it is not a cycle related to price, or markets, but a technical one. It is in reality Bitcoin’s monetary policy cycle.
All of the world’s existing BTC (there are about 19.4 Million of them) were made as a reward for miners.
Nonetheless, in the Bitcoin (BTC) protocol, which is inviolable and immutable, it is written that at the beginning 50 Bitcoin created out of thin air were given away to anyone who managed to mine a block, and that this reward would be halved exactly every 210,000 blocks.
It likewise reveals in the protocol that approximately every 10 minutes a block must be mined, and thanks to the automatic change in difficulty it is greater than 14 years that an average of just under 10 minutes passes betwixt blocks.
By doing the calculations, it turns out that the reward halves every 4 years or so, and this is the true unchanging and predictable cycle of Bitcoin.
To date, the time betwixt halving has been just over 3 years and 10 months, and by halving we mean precisely the cutting in half of the reward given to the miners.
Bitcoin’s monetary policy
Halving is Bitcoin’s only monetary policy measure.
At the beginning, 50 BTC, or about 7,200 Bitcoin per day, were made and announced for each mined block, but from November 2012 they dropped to 25 per block (3,600 per day).
The Second halving took place in July 2016, and brought the reward to 12.5 Bitcoin per block (1,800 per day), whereas the last halving took place in May 2020 and brought it to the present 6.25 (900 per day).
The following halving is gonna come betwixt April and May next year.
At this price, no more new Bitcoin will be created in approximately 2140, and neither will any Satoshi. A Satoshi is the smallest unit into which a Bitcoin (BTC) can be divided on its blockchain tech, and it corresponds to one hundred millionth of a BTC.
The impact of miners on price
Nowadays, Bitcoin (BTC) mining is an activity that requires the consumption of large amounts of electricity.
As the miners cash in BTC, they are in reality forced to sell much of it to be able to buy electricity which must necessarily be paid for in fiat currency.
This implies that when the reward given to miners is halved, the amount of Bitcoin that miners can sell to fund their business is likewise significantly reduced.
To put it another way, the halving tends to have a negative impact on the supply of Bitcoin in the market, such that if demand remains constant, the price can only go up.
Nonetheless, it is worth keeping in mind that there is no certainty that demand for Bitcoin can remain constant after a halving, or even increase.
Bitcoin (BTC): the price forecast for the following halving
In the face of this, it is not surprising that there are numerous who believe that after next year’s halving, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) may increase.
Nonetheless, one should not forget neither that the present price is below $27,000, nor that the 2023 high stopped just over $31,000, and that not even the record-breaking peak managed to break through the $70,000 wall.
The optimistic prediction was posted by cryptocurrency analyst TechDev on Twitter platform, and it speculates that the price of Bitcoin could exceed $160,000.
To be fair, TechDev specifies that this is not an actual forecast, but a projection of Bitcoin’s price according to the historical interpretation of the price chart to date.
Nonetheless, this projection is in line with the predictions of plenty of other analysts regarding the parabola of Bitcoin’s price after the following halving.
$160,000 after the following halving
Nonetheless, there is one thing that does not hold water in TechDev’s projection.
Although while the following halving is gonna come in April 2024 at the latest, TechDev’s projection shows instead reaching $160,000 as early as December this year.
Nonetheless, it considers the past period betwixt peaks, and according to that history concludes to speculate that the following peak could occur in December 2023.
In fact, it seems rather difficult for the price of Bitcoin to make new all-time highs before the following halving.
Furthermore, to be able to assume that such figures would be reached from current levels, it would be necessary to assume that a new speculative bubble would inflate betwixt now and the end of the year.
The assumption of a bull run characterized by a real speculative bubble as early as 2023 is considered remote by numerous, although some believe it is possible as a result of the eventual collapse of the United States dollar.
Nonetheless, if one ignores the timing, the maximum peak shown by TechDev’s projection, during a range of $160,000 to $180,000, is quite similar to that of other predictions, albeit post-halving.
The issue is the fact that TechDev’s projection is based precisely on the timing, so ignoring the timing is effectively invalidating the projection.
The $100,000 level
Although while reaching $160,000 seems very optimistic, given the previous record-breaking peak at $69,000, it would seem a little less optimistic if $100,000 is taken into account.
In reality, in 2021 numerous expected this level to be reached, but it did not arrive.
Thing is, in the 1st half of 2021 there was a very powerful 1st bull run that took the price of Bitcoin from about $10,000 to $64,000.
Then there was a sharp correction, which brought it down to $30,000, which was primarily owing to the Chinese ban on cryptocurrency mining and trading.
Coming off the majority of Chinese financial resources in the cryptocurrency markets, the Second bullrun of 2021 failed to attract Bitcoin’s price over $70,000, and $100,000 was not even approached.
Now, on the other hand, starting in June, Chinese financial resources may begin to return to the cryptocurrency markets, as Hong Kong has decided to allow registered cryptocurrency exchanges to operate lawfully again.
Furthermore, over the past two post-bubble bear-markets, Bitcoin’s price had always fallen 85 percent from its highs, while in 2022 this was not the case.
If we consider the $15,500 touched in November 2022 as the lowest of the third post-bubble bear-market, curiously enough we find that to make an -85 percent from the record-breaking peak this would have had to be precisely at the $100,000 mark.
Hence it is not at all absurd to imagine that $100,000 in 2021 was in the air, and did not come just as a result of the lack of Chinese financial resources. And with the return of Chinese financial resources, even the $160,000 post-halving level does not seem so absurd.
Still, it is still overly optimistic to consider it an attainable level by the end of the year.
