All markets move in cycles, and crypto is no exception. The only major difference is that cycles in this market have been more compressed since Bitcoin is just ten years old. There have been three major cycle peaks so far over the past decade and analysts have been using them to predict the next one.
$150,000 BTC by July 2023
The first cycle took 329 days to peak and occurred in 2011 when Bitcoin prices hit a high of just below $32. A bear market followed until the next peak which came in 2014 with BTC prices topping out at around $1,180.
Then came the big downturn of 2014 – 2015 when Bitcoin lost over 80%, as it has done again this time, falling to below $200. The upswing took over 20 months to initiate and began in late 2015 leading to the previous peak of just below $20,000 in the third cycle peak of late 2017.
Crypto analyst Josh Rager has observed these cyclical patterns and concluded that each cycle has had exactly 574 days added to it in order to reach the next peak. Using this figure he has made an attempt at predicting the next peak.
A 574 day addition to the current cycle would put the next Bitcoin peak in mid-2023, 2051 days after the previous one. The price estimate at this peak is around $150,000 which is not entirely implausible looking at the chart patterns.
Bitcoin Halving to Initiate Trend Reversal
This estimation falls in line with other predictions that align a major trend reversal and the end of the crypto winter with Bitcoin’s halving in May next year. The decrease in block reward and supply could compress these cycles with some claiming that a new all-time high will come in 2021.
Either way, the prediction is bullish in the long term but spells more gloom and sideways trading for the rest of 2019. Institutional investors are looking long term though and some, such as New York’s Greyscale Investments, have researched halving events to identify entry points.
Two previous halving events in 2012 and 2016 have been followed by large upside momentum and it is expected that the 2020 one will have the same effect. This could quite plausibly tie in with the cycle peak prediction and create a massive bull run for Bitcoin and crypto markets during 2021 and 2022.
At the moment Bitcoin is still struggling to overcome its four month resistance barrier at $4,200. BTC has hit this level a couple of times recently but instantly bounced off it. Over the past week it has hovered around the $4,100 range but still cannot muster enough bullish momentum to take it further just yet. The longer term outlook does look very rosy though so now would be the best time to accumulate and hodl and unspent transaction output (UTXO) levels seem to indicate that this is already happening.
