After a tumultuous 2022, crypto investors are trying to figure out when the next bitcoin bull run could happen.
Last week, at a crypto conference in St. Moritz, Switzerland, CNBC spoke to industry insiders who paint the picture of 2023 as the year to be cautious. Bitcoin is expected to trade in a range, sensitive to macroeconomic situations such as rising interest rates and continued volatility. A new bull run is unlikely in 2023.
However, experts are looking ahead to next year and beyond with optimism.
By 2022, the entire crypto market has lost about $1.4 trillion in value to the industry facing liquidity problems and bankruptcy headed by The collapse of the FTX exchange. The contagion spread across the industry.
While bitcoin has rallied slightly at the start of the year, matching risk assets like stocks, experts say bitcoin is unlikely to retest its all-time high of just under $69,000 but it has body has bottomed.
Bill Tai, a venture capitalist and crypto veteran, told CNBC last week: “I think there will be a bit more downside, but I don’t think there will be much.”
“There’s a chance that [bitcoin] looks to have bottomed out here,” adding that it could drop to as low as $12,000 before rising again.
Meltem Demirors, chief strategy officer at CoinShares, said bitcoin will likely be trading in the lower range of $15,000 to $20,000 and at the higher end of $25,000 to $30,000.
She said a lot of the “forced selling” happening in 2022 due to the market crash is now over, but not a lot of new money has poured into bitcoin.
“I don’t think there will be much of a forced sell-off left, which is optimistic,” Demirors told CNBC on Friday. “But again, I think the upside is pretty limited, because we don’t see a lot of new capital coming in either.”
Investors are also keeping an eye on the macroeconomic situation. Bitcoin has been shown to be strongly correlated with risky assets like stocks and especially tech-heavy assets. Nasdaq. These assets are affected by changes in interest rates from the Federal Reserve and other macroeconomic moves. Last year, the Fed embarked on a The roadmap to increase interest rates strongly to try to tame inflation, which hurts risk assets along with bitcoin.
Industry insiders say a change in the macro situation could help bitcoin.
“There may be catalysts that we are not aware of, again, the macro situation and the political environment is quite unstable, inflation continues to rise quite hot, I think that is a new thing. We haven’t seen that, you know, in 30, 40 years,” Demirors said.
“So who knows, when people look to the New Year’s allocation where crypto will fit into that portfolio?”
Time for the next bitcoin bull run
In CNBC interviews, a number of industry participants talked about historic bitcoin cycles, which occur roughly every four years. Normally, bitcoin would hit an all-time high, followed by a major correction. There will be a bad year and then a mild recovery year.
Then the “halving” will happen. This is when miners, who run specialized machines to efficiently validate transactions on the bitcoin network, see their rewards for mining cut in half. Miners receive bitcoin as a reward for validating transactions. The half off, which occurs every four years, effectively slows the supply of bitcoin to the market. There will be only 21 million bitcoins in circulation.
Halvings usually precede a bull run. The next halving event takes place in 2024.
Scaramucci calls 2023 a “recovery year” for bitcoin and predicts it could trade at $50,000 to $100,000 in two to three years.
“You are taking risks but you also believe in [bitcoin] adopted child. So if we get the right to apply and I believe we will, this could easily become a $50 to $100k asset over the next 2 to 3 years,” said Scaramucci. speak.
Meanwhile, Tai said the start of a bull run “could be a year away,” saying that the consequences of the FTX crash could continue to be felt for another six to nine months.
Jean-Baptiste Graftieaux, global CEO of crypto exchange Bitstamp, told CNBC last week that the next bull run could be in the next two years, citing growing interest from traders. institutional investment.
However, Demirors warned that events in 2022 “have caused enormous reputational damage to the industry and asset class,” adding that “it will take some time for that confidence to return.” .”
