What price will Bitcoin reach by Christmas? Will people ask me about it? Should I get Bitcoin as a gift for my family? Will they even want it? What do I say if — god forbid — someone asks me about Bitcoin? Well, let us answer all of those questions for you in this Christmas edition Bitcoin price prediction.
The past year hasn’t been a particularly great one for crypto investors. The total market cap of the cryptocurrency industry has fallen by more than US$2 trillion since November last year, according to data from TradingView. This consistent downward price spiral for digital assets has left many wondering when they can expect the price of bluechip crypto assets like Bitcoin (BTC) to rebound.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is changing hands for US$16,830, down 75.6% from its all time high of $69,000 on November 10 last year.
Now, with the end of the year rapidly approaching, it’s time to take a look at how Bitcoin has traditionally behaved during the festive season and try and figure out how the cryptocurrency might perform over the Christmas period. Making predictions about the price of any asset is difficult, but owing to the infamous volatility of the crypto market it’s particularly difficult with something like Bitcoin.
Overall, experts remain divided on whether or not Bitcoin can recover in price this year, however the majority of analysts seem to agree that Bitcoin remains on track to visit new lows before we’re through with 2022. With that said, some authorities still hold firm to a mega-bullish outlook on Bitcoin for next year.
Does Bitcoin really go up at Christmas?
Historically, Bitcoin has performed extremely well over the Christmas period, recording consistent year-over-year growth for every festive season since Christmas in 2018, when it was worth just US$4,000 a piece. Unfortunately this year looks like the year that the trend is going to be firmly bucked and bullish predictions from experts are few and far between.
So, unfortunately for the crew over at Bitcoin Archive, it looks unlikely that they’ll be adding a bigger number to their list this year…
Bitcoin end of year price prediction: 2022
Over the last month, amidst a prolonged crypto market slump that was worsened by the sudden shocking collapse of crypto exchange FTX, Bitcoin has been struggling to keep its head above the US$17,000 mark.Bitcoin’s price is also being driven down by something called ‘miner capitulation’ where the increasing price of electricity and decreasing price of Bitcoin force Bitcoin miners out of the market. Some of the most prominent Bitcoin miners like Core Scientific have been forced to sell their Bitcoin holdings along with their mining rigs to recoup costs.
Adding to the negative pressure on Bitcoin’s price is the fact that many of the new additions that drove up Bitcoin’s price throughout 2021 weren’t convicted holders, they were opportunistic institutions like hedge funds and asset management firms that treat cryptocurrency as a high-risk asset, and as a result are less likely to HODL their BTC for the long term.
Taking all of this into consideration is Bryan Ventura, a senior lawyer specialising in Web3 and the chair of BlockchainNZ, who in conversation with The Chainsaw predicted that Bitcoin will slide to reach US$14,000 before the year is through.
Ventura added his expectation that Bitcoin would bottom out at around US$12,000 in mid-2023, and if global macro conditions improve significantly then we’d look set to kick off a new bull cycle heading into 2024.
Speaking to The Chainsaw, Carlos Gomez, the Chief Investment Officer at Belobaba Crypto Asset Fund provides a slightly more positive outlook for the price of Bitcoin heading into the year’s end.
“There are opposing forces clashing against each other when it comes to the direction of Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto markets over the next three weeks. Overall, they are mostly skewed to the positive side,” Gomez explained.
“On one hand, we have Washington sending mixed signals towards the actions of SBF, FTX and the Alameda crew. They are heavily investigating their involvement in the collapse of the Terra/Luna protocol, but it appears they are not too interested in digging into the FTX matter, which is causing a lot of regulatory uncertainty,” he said.
Gomez also points to the growing adoption of Bitcoin in Brazil and South, saying that the increase in demand from these “very important markets” should help drive prices up.
“On-chain data is also giving us a very interesting signal. The MVRV Z-Score is entering the green zone that historically precedes huge spikes. Based on that, I believe we are not far from the bottom,” Gomez added.
All in all, the next three weeks look positive and stable, and I think we should expect a quiet, slightly upward trend until years end. Unless of course, another big operator in the market files for bankruptcy,” Gomez concluded
Bitcoin price prediction 2023
Despite the uncomfortable reality that Bitcoin investors probably won’t see much in the way of positive price action any time this year, Tim Draper, an American venture capitalist and the founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), remains confident in his prediction that Bitcoin will reach a value of US$250,000 by the middle of next year.
Seemingly unperturbed by the dramatic implosion of FTX Draper told CNBC that he remains extremely bullish on the cryptocurrency.
“I have extended my prediction by six months. $250k is still my number.”
Tim Draper
Standing in stark contrast to this is Eric Robertsen, the Global Head of Research at Standard Chartered Bank. In a note to investors, Robertson said that the price of Bitcoin could drop to $5,000 next year. The analyst explained that Bitcoin would most likely fall further as more crypto firms “succumb to liquidity squeezes and investor withdrawals.
Robertsen warned Bitcoin investors that further declines in the stock prices of blue chip technology companies like Google, Meta and Amazon will cause the Bitcoin price crash to accelerate, further kicking off a ‘domino effect’ of crypto bankruptcies.
“More and more crypto firms and exchanges find themselves with insufficient liquidity, leading to further bankruptcies and a collapse in investor confidence in digital assets,” Robertsen added. While Robertson admitted that this wasn’t the most likely outcome, he stressed that this possibility was being widely downplayed by many crypto market participants.
Will Bitcoin hit 100k this year?
Across social media — particularly in the dark corners of Crypto Twitter — there still seems to be some debate around whether or not Bitcoin (BTC) could potentially reach a US$100k valuation by the end of this year.
Without trying to sound arrogant or overly sceptical, the chance of Bitcoin reaching US$100k by the end of this year is roughly the same as the real Santa Claus coming barreling down your chimney and leaving a ledger stacked with sats under your Christmas tree. To put it in simpler terms: you’d probably have more luck winning the lottery a few times in a row…
Is Bitcoin a good Christmas gift?
When doing some digging for this article, a frequently asked question was whether or not Bitcoin was a ‘good christmas gift’. That all depends on whether or not the person you’re buying a gift for likes Bitcoin. Regardless, if you did want to gift someone Bitcoin, one of the easiest ways to do so is to grab them a Bitcoin gift card.
Some of the major cryptocurrency exchanges, such as Coinbase and Binance, also offer digital gift cards that are delivered to the recipient’s email address. In these cases, the recipient usually has to set up an account with the exchange in order to claim their Bitcoin. Either way, sending some free Bitcoin is always a good opportunity to “orange-pill” a loved one this festive season.
Christmas lights vs Bitcoin
A Christmas-time piece on Bitcoin just wouldn’t be complete without briefly touching on the whole Christmas lights vs. Bitcoin debate. What ‘Christmas lights vs Bitcoin’ debate you ask?
All fingers seem to point back to an article from this time last year titled ‘Bitcoin Mining Uses Less Energy Than Christmas Lights’ which has sparked rampant debate across social media around the energy consumption of Bitcoin miners.
Unfortunately for Bitcoin enthusiasts, prominent tech journalist Charles Arthur did a bunch of digging and found that predictably LED Christmas lights use less energy than Bitcoin. At current Bitcoin chews through roughly 86.7 TWh, roughly the same energy consumption as the Solomon Islands.
DISCLAIMER: The information in this article is intended to be general in nature and is not personal financial product advice. It does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs.
