Bitcoin has crossed the $10,000 barrier a couple of times in the past couple weeks, but it won’t stay up there.
Bitcoin Fever Fails To Take Over … Yet
Bulls have been nudging it, seemingly against its will, hoping for that ever-elusive run back beyond $11,000.
And then we’ve got the occasional freak trading accidents, like happened last Friday afternoon, when the price boomed over 30% for no particular reason, or several reasons. But no one’s really sure, and no one ever will be, because it’s crypto.
Trading is all about psychological barriers, and $10,000 adds another digit to the Bitcoin price, lending its own mysticism to the game.
So we haven’t seen the glorious run toward $20,000. Not just yet. But it seems the traders are working hard on it, with massive swings.
Can anyone tell me the last time Bitcoin moved up >30% in one day? This is unreal.
— Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) October 26, 2019
$20,000 Target Remains Elusive
As the year closes, the more absurd predictions have quieted some. But the Internet is forever. We all remember the many times Tom Lee has called the price far longer than it manages to get.
We all know that John McAfee has a high probability of eating his own member in the coming years, if he’s a man of his word and he is still alive, of course. The drug-addled septigenerian is nevertheless one of crypto’s best, and most famous, friends, and a presidency under him would be a boon to blockchain.
But what, really, is keeping the price from shooting beyond $10,000?
Even $11,000 would make a lot of bulls happy at this point.
The answer is more complicated than a simple supply and demand, market-based observation. Although, certainly the reasons for buying Bitcoin now are fewer than they were a couple years ago, and the same goes for Ethereum.
Either one provided an express lane to the exciting ICO market in the boom of 2017, but there are emerging market opportunities that will be equally attractive to traditional traders.
Futures and the eventual Bitcoin ETF provide enough action for many, but neither require the bettor to own actual Bitcoin in most cases. This means that demand for actual Bitcoin will be lighter.
IEOs Subvert Crypto Demand By Providing Fiat On-Ramps
Additionally, exchanges supporting the second-coming of the ICO boom, dubbed the “Initial Exchange Offering,” will allow investors to fund their accounts with checking accounts.
These things equate to a lessened demand for Bitcoin.
However, in a matter of months, we’ll see a 50% cut in the daily supply of new BTC entering the system.
This will likely lead to a price gouging consolidation effort in the weeks leading up to the moment when miners are suddenly rewarded half as much.
Don’t get overconfident on the technicals, though. Bull buying sprees can be offset by overzealous dumpers, and that’s just as likely to be heightened as not by a prevalence of trading bots.
TL;DR: Bitcoin may have found its real pricing in the $9,000-10,000 range, at least for current circumstances. In the future, a mark-up could be justified by a reduction in daily inflation, but there’s also substantial reason to suspect that effect could be dampened by excited sellers.
