BITCOIN
Bitcoin Post-Halving 2024 Price Analysis
Where are we in the cycle? Am I bullish or bearish? Have I lost all my money yet? Why is there a snail in the Bitcoin chart image?
The eagerly awaited Bitcoin halving is behind us, not to mention the famously seductive ETFs. And where are we, price-wise? The short answer is in no man’s land. Rejoice!
In this post, we’ll analyze the price of Bitcoin
If you want a short-term prediction, the most honest answer is — I have no idea! However, I’m reasonably confident we’ll see a significant increase in three to eighteen months. Still, anything is possible, and there are no guarantees in the markets or life.
Here’s the good news: The politicians have not yet quite decided they want to annihilate each other, so there’s that. A looming threat of war that apparently scares the markets every few weeks remains nothing more than a potentiality — one we all hope never comes to fruition. Let’s hope cooler heads prevail, and we get to have our bull market continuation. For the time being, this is the plan.
Without further adieu, let’s get into it.
Where are we regarding the price of Bitcoin?
“Well, we’re in a bull market, Sir. Don’t you know?”
(if you know, you know)
In all seriousness, zooming out to the weekly chart, things look just fine. We broke out of the all-time highs and are now experiencing a retest. All is well in the land of Daddy Bitcoin. And there you were, selling your Bitcoin to the bankers, crying yourself to sleep like a weak-handed baby! :) BULLISH!
The price is still above the 12 EMA (moving average), and we’re retesting the ATH break. BULLISH!
The 12 EMA is above the 21 EMA on the weekly chart. BULLISH!
We could also say we’ve just experienced a classical 20% bull market dip. BULLISH!
With a bit of imagination, we could see a pattern repeating itself. We’re retesting the ATH breakout and are about to go on a tear, price-wise. BULLISH!
The halving is complete, and we all know what follows the halving of “bitcoin inflation,” don’t we? We don’t? Be ignorant no further. Behold the chart that tells no lies. The vertical green lines represent the halvings. The red line indicates a potential time frame for the next cycle top.
I think it’s pretty self-explanatory. The price of an asset goes up over time if the supply diminishes every four years while demand grows exponentially. The blue arrow represents the time from halving to the next cycle top. Whether this is a case of causation or correlation is a matter of endless debate. I would say it’s irrelevant in the short term but crucial in the long term. Fair?
According to the above measurements, the top of this bull market cycle should arrive sometime in October 2025. Please keep in mind these are just fractals and theoretical cycles that don’t have to repeat to infinity!
Below is the monthly chart for less noise. In short, the price goes up after halving. Maybe not immediately. It probably will not directly catapult the price into ATH, but eventually. BULLISH!
So far, so good. How about the daily chart? Very well. Let’s zoom in. I like to check the 50 and 200 EMAs on the daily Bitcoin chart for an overview of the trend.
As you can see, “signals” like crossing the 50 daily EMA aren’t exactly bulletproof. If you want to use them for trading, they need to be considered in context — time, price, and a gazillion other things.
Most of the dips below the 50 daily EMA have been good buys. Every once in a while, though, you get run over by the starving bears!
Truth be told, I’m pretty certain I bought every single one of those “tops!” But here’s the interesting bit. It only burned me once — in 2018. That one still hurts today. And then, even this little idiot learned an important lesson.
Always manage risk because you can never be 100% certain of what will happen in the market! It’s okay to be wrong but not to stay wrong. If you realize you screwed up, get the hell out!
Now, we zoom in and see if the closer price action reveals any clues. There are a million and one ways to look at the charts. I like to focus on trends and liquidity pools in ranging environments.
Those are areas around tops and bottoms where it’s reasonable to assume that a lot of stop orders are waiting to get run over and where fakeouts occur on a regular basis, pilling in even more liquidity for the big players as breakout traders join in the game. All the small fish get eaten by the giant whales here. It’s the market whale feeding grounds. You get the picture.
The above picture looks promising. Depending on where one draws his lines, liquidity has been touched on both extremes of the range, and we’re now ready to complete this ranging consolidation and resume the previous trend.
There are problems with such assumptions:
- Everyone can draw different lines on a chart and will get different results.
- While testing the liquidity on one side usually propels the price to the other extreme of the range, it doesn’t need to happen.
- The liquidity dip or fakeouts have been very shallow at this point. Where’s the 30% knee-bucking shakeout? (in Bitcoin, not alts — they got annihilated already)
- Also, I could argue (with myself, apparently) that no liquidity has yet been touched, as per the following image.
Above are two ugly scenarios that are still quite possible.
- A new ATH followed by a nasty dump below 60,000 USD per Bitcoin. I must admit, that one would hurt.
- And there’s the version that reverts the price right around here somewhere and dumps lower to test the buyers’ resolve.
Which is the correct range and version of events? Who the hell knows? UNDECIDED!
I don’t really use RSI but let’s throw it in just for fun. Anyway, daily RSI has finally cooled to below 50, so I guess that’s potentially BULLISH.
Not all things are as bullish as I have perhaps led you to believe
For one, this dip feels relatively tame. I can’t explain it, and I don’t like it, but something of a nasty dip toward 50,000 USD for everyone’s altcoin bags, including mine, to be absolutely demolished (as opposed to just cut in half) seems like something that could still happen. Maybe it’s the depravity of the last few weeks before the dip. I don’t know. I can’t shake it, though.
Then again, I feel like the whole world is in one of those Sodoma and Gomorrah situations, where a pissed-off God is coming to burn it all into the ground. The guilty, the innocent, and the observers alive. In real life and the markets. BEARISH!
The legacy markets took a sneeze lately. Below are some examples. BEARISH!
Also, FED has been adamant that until inflation has subsided, there will be no rate cuts. Those are imperative for new money flowing into legacy markets and for the economy booming, or so it is prophesied. Still, we’re in the election year, and I’m not sure if the FED can withstand the political pressure that is about to fall on their heads. BEARISH until it’s not.
Two hot wars are being fought at the moment (Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Palestine/the Arab world?). Things probably won’t escalate, but they can at any moment. BEARISH for some segments, BULLISH for others.
Where does Bitcoin come in? Is it still a risk-on asset (like stocks), or has it become a risk-off asset (like gold)? BLEARISH?
Then, perhaps even worse from a trader’s perspective (a joke — chill!), we have a new Death Cross on the 4-hour! OMG, it’s all over! The 50 4-hour EMA crossed below the 200 EMA.
Jokes aside, it’s called a Death Cross for a reason. See for yourself! Better yet, set up a 50 and 200 EMA, go to a 4-hour chart of Bitcoin, and check the whole history. It’s not looking good, friends! A 20% dip following a Death Cross is quite the norm. BEARISH!
So, which is it — bullish or bearish? — YES!
Anything is possible in the short term, and I have no idea which side will win out. In the mid-to-long term, I’m as bullish as ever.
In the end, does it even matter?
- If you’re holding spot and remain bullish for the remainder of 2024 and perhaps even 2025, probably not. Good times are most likely still ahead.
- If you’re trying to catch the exact bottom, manage risk on open positions, or are over-leveraged or overexposed, then I suspect this price action is driving you nuts. You should probably remove some risk from the table until we the picture cristalizes.
As for me, I think at this stage in the bull market, I’ll keep my spot buys that were meant as buy and hold anyway but stay clear of leveraged speculation until a more transparent direction is indicated. Getting chopped up is no fun, and I’ve already taken a hit on this down move as it is. I might chill a little longer, licking my wounds until the market shows its hand, and then I shall pounce again!
Maybe tomorrow, maybe in a few weeks. Only time will tell. I’m ready either way. If the price dumps below 60,000 USD, I’d be tempted to sell my kidneys for more FIAT, and if the price shows strength in the coming days and weeks, I’ll be jumping back into the shark-infested waters, hoping to catch me some easy prey.
As for the answer to the question of the snail in the first image of this post, Bitcoin halving, ETFs, and all the other bullish catalysts take time to push the price upward. They’re great as news speculation, but the event itself is often followed by some disappointment, price-wise. In time, though, Bitcoin always wins the race. Slow and steady does it (for cryptocurrency standards).
Good luck out there.
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