Bitcoin’s $19,000, The New $3,000?

After falling down and down for months, bitcoin finally stabilized at $6,000 in September 2018 and seemingly stopped moving.

But it did not stay there for long, with it capitulating just a few weeks later, down to $3,000 in November.

Bitcoin became dead at this point and people stopped paying any attention to the price. The depth of bear had gripped crypto.

Rather than going anymore up or anymore down, the currency just did a little bit of both, for months on end.

It’s not until the second of April 2019, just a day after Trustnode’s very own April fools went viral, that bitcoin jumped and then kept jumping with it settling at a higher low of $6,500.

That’s five months since that $3,000 level was reached, with it all echoing now precisely four years later.

After falling down and down for months, bitcoin finally stabilized at $30,000 in May 2022 and seemingly stopped moving.

But it did not stay there for long, with it capitulating just a few weeks later, down to circa $20,000 in November.

Bitcoin became dead at this point and people stopped paying any attention to the price. The depth of bear had gripped crypto.

It stayed there for four months, and of course we don’t know what happens next since it is currently still trading at around that level.

It’s not yet November, however, some might say. But, bitcoin did not dive this September either.

The diving this time instead seems to have been on an accelerated mode, presumably because that pricing-in is perhaps applying more to bitcoin than it used to now that it has some history.

That level of $30,000 in addition, just like $6,000, felt ‘comfortable.’ The capitulation on the other hand, both to $3,000 and to $17,500, was devastating.

Many were whipped out in that June capitulation, tuning off from crypto at least for some days, when it seemed like everything was on fire.

Likewise for that $3,000 capitulation it felt like everything had been ravaged, hence why it took months back then for sentiment to change and it has been months now too.

While back then however we have the benefit of knowing what happened, now we don’t. But, if price halves again from here, then it is doubtful anyone would think it is not the bottom, and therefore people would buy and thus presumably price wouldn’t stay there for long.

Both at $3,000 and $19,000 therefore there’s room to think it might fall or rise, and therefore it is doing neither.

From $30,000 or $6,000 it did because there was room to think it could potentially fall further once it fell a leg down, indicated by those levels feeling comfortable.

The current levels though are not comfortable. They’re more ‘sad’ enough to sort of ignore the price completely and no longer care about it.

Hence why activity has dived across the crypto space, raising one potentially interesting question: if the fall has been at an accelerated rate, will the rise too?

That the fall has been at an accelerated rate few can doubt, except of course no one knows if there’s more down to go, but if there is then it would be an outlier because we have been sidewaying almost as much as we have at $3,000, and at $6,000 we sidewayed far less.

Naturally though the spoken common view on social media is that we’re at 2018’s $6,000. Manipulation can be one reason for that because buyers need sellers, but also the bear currently is almost total.

No one really thinks this is going to go up anytime soon, not even to $30,000 let alone proper bull run. Down down is what has been for a year, and everyone expect that to keep on forever.

Any up at this stage would probably be a sucker’s rally as the despair stage would be giving way to disbelief, and we are very much at the despair stage because all data in regards to activity is at the rock bottom.

Parking all that however, presuming the acceleration has been due to pricing-in, then should we bring everything four months forward?

We’ve said before that the Christmas day of the first bear year has always been a good time to buy, so does that mean $30,000 in December after November moves, four months ahead of April?

Specifics are anyone’s guess, but more generally, the halvings so far have not been priced in to the extent they should have been, with hindsight.

The main reason is probably because of that disbelief factor, and there may be no reason why it shouldn’t still apply because does anyone really expect $60,000 next year?

Well, if it’s an echo, then it should be expected at least briefly, but currently even while writing that we don’t quite believe it necessarily.

Will bitcoin really 10x again? And from here, that would be $200,000. Well, it could, but does anyone believe it enough to act at this stage?

That’s especially with indications we might be facing a recession, but bitcoin has remained largely uncorrelated as we have seen in the past few months because it has its own factors which are more affected by the fact the crypto is still young and therefore has plenty of room to grow in usage, including by individuals or entities which are just learning about it, with macro not really able to affect that too much.

Where sentiment is concerned however, the unknown makes it difficult to price in, and the uncertainty makes it difficult to resist feelings with no one quite able to say whether this is the $3,000 or $6,000 level, even if it does feel like $3,000 as if bitcoin went to $10,000, for example, no one would reasonably think it can go to $5,000 unless something major has happened.

While at the current level, there’s room to speculate that maybe, but without there being another turtle down buffer, rationally maybe there isn’t too much room.

We’ll know in due time though. Yet, this is the longest sideway since $3,000, with that straight line also looking fairly typical.