Op-Ed
The last two days have been particularly tumultuous for Bitcoin, with the top cryptocurrency, in terms of market cap, practically $2000 lower at the moment of writing this piece, free-falling from $10,200 USD, to approximately $8300 USD.
The reason for the significant drop in price has many investors perplexed. Some have blamed a slowing in hashrate, or processing power to data-mine BTC, while others are laying the blame at a move across the blockchain of $1.2 billion in BTC, subsequently being sold on an exchange.
The latter is the much more likely variable to have caused such a dramatic price drop, as the cryptocurrency has been trading sideways for months, and has been waiting for a catalyst to push it in either direction. The triggering of such a sell would be a sign to other investors, both large and small, that further negative price and potentially harmful news are coming down the proverbially “pipeline”, and so panic selling has ensued.
So where will the price go to? In my opinion, $7000 should be the low of this current bearish trend, while $10000 by the end of 2019 seems a plausible place to finish the year. The explanation for my price prediction is simple: BTC was steadily growing to the mark of $4250 and had a significant upswing to about $6000. After that point, what’s referred to as “parabolic” swings occurred, with the price rapidly increasing, sometimes as much as $1000-2000 in a day to two day period.
Such price growth seems to many institutional investors, and those who are less speculative and more conservative, to be artificial, not actually coming about from the growth and expansion in terms of usage of the actual asset itself. Thus, a return to $7000, a $1000 difference from the start of parabolic swings, seems reasonable to this investor.
A $7k price in the very near future is realistic for two reasons; it would represent a still significant price increase from the orientation of the parabolic swings, but more importantly, it would act as a trigger on the “short sells” that have been placed on perpetual futures on exchanges such as Bitmex, in which investors have been paying 1-2% daily for futures contracts which are capable of staying on the order-book for up to 3 months.
The price drop and bearish price action have been evident for a little over two months now. If in the next month the price does hit $7000, these “short” contracts would be fulfilled, allowing some major amounts of wealth to be made, and clearing the range for futures contracts from that point on.
If BTC continues to fall, many might speculate that this could be the “beginning of the end”. I personally do not believe it is, and that by December the price will have recovered to $10000. The reason for such a prediction being, institutional investment continues to grow and although BTC price took significant hits after its all-time high of nearly $20000, it came back.
As investment continues to grow, and further legitimacy is added through the approval of ETFs, BTC will only be even more valuable. Supply and demand state that as demand goes up, with the supply remaining constant, and actually becoming scarcer when the mining rate halves, the value should only increase. This is not the beginning of the end, but merely one more stepping stone in the path to long-term, “organic” growth, based out of large scale investment, not speculation.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZyCrypto. None of the information you read on ZyCrypto.com should be regarded as investment advice. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should always conduct your own research before making any investment decision.
