My starting assumption as we enter this bitcoin bull market is that we’ll see 2 mini bull runs.
The first one started a few months ago, driven by the improving global liquidity conditions and the optimism over a US Bitcoin spot ETF. This run-up will probably grind steadily upward until the ETF is approved (likely by January 2024). It’s possible that the approval itself won’t be “sell the news” and, as up to $1B of newly injected buying pressure enters, will send Bitcoin even higher. Temporarily. This run-up alone could see Bitcoin pass its $69K previous all-time high (made in November 2021).
Then there will be a sell-off, a pressure release valve, driven in part by underwhelming ETF demand (which will come, only more steadily and incrementally than people think), and by excess leverage justified by the unsustainable excitement. Bitcoin will fall below the $69K mark, say to $50K or so.
By mid-2024, as the ETF inflows steadily build, as macro liquidity conditions steadily improve, as halving supply shock starts to actually affect the market by May, June, and beyond — that’s when the second and “real” bull-run happens, and BTC soars past $100K and could touch $200K or more. This is where the real institutional and maybe even nation-state fomo begins to kick in.
Cycles are inevitable and at some point, the bear will be back. But I think BTC > $100K could become the new normal.
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I could be very wrong about the above. Bitcoin could see 1 massive quick bull run followed by a multi-year slow grind down. What Bob Loukas calls a left translated cycle. But I think there’s too many positive shoes to drop for this to be the more likely outcome. Whereas most of the negative shoes have dropped (driven in part by political and institutional pressure to clear the bad actors out of the system before the big tradfi money men step in, they don’t wanna get their shoes dirty after all).