Bitcoin has been on the rise in the past month. There is no denying that many are already talking about the possibility of a bull market. Bitcoin almost hit $9K the other day. And now, there are the likes of Andy Cheung who is the head of operations of OKEx, a crypto exchange based in Malta, who thinks that Bitcoin hitting $20K this time around is a “conservative prediction”.
He said that “$20,000 is a conservative prediction for (the) Bitcoin price in 2019, as I said last year. The rally won’t stop here because more institutional investors are coming into the market, and the 2020 halving effect starts to take place. We are thrilled to witness such (a) bullish trend, and I look forward to a new high the Bitcoin deserves. Bitcoin is not just a coin but a spirit that hinders the crypto-industry”.
Mimicking 2017?
Bitcoin took more than 120% just in the last two months. From the beginning of the year to today, it was able to go up by 140%. If you will compare January 2017 to May 2017, you’d see that there is a similarity to what is happening today.
But if you will look at the dynamics of the previous bull market, you will notice that things are a bit different. For instance, in 2017, you have the ICO mania. Bitcoin was able to surge by 219% mainly because of these ICOs. Regulators are now targeting ICOs. The US SEC even went after celebrities.
As for 2019, it seems that many are looking to buy BTC to hold on to them. Diar even reported that there was an increasing number of investors who didn’t move their Bitcoin from their wallets. Another important trend that has to be looked closely is the number of Bitcoin holders. According to a study conducted by Xapo, according to its CEO Wences Casares, “After 10 years of working well without interruption, with more than 60 million holders, adding more than 1 million new holders per month and moving more than $1 billion per day worldwide, (bitcoin) has a good chance of succeeding”.
$30K By 2019?
If you are going to ask Jihan Chu who is the co-founder of Kenetic Capital, there are three factors that have to be considered why Bitcoin is going to hit $30K this year. For him, that’s the Bitcoin halving, the disappointment of tech IPOs, and the likes of Facebook and Fidelity that are now moving into crypto. He also mentioned that “ten years out from the Bitcoin story, and we are starting to see the story become a reality. And what people really seeing now is that cryptocurrency is not going away”.
Chu is a believer that big companies such as Facebook and JP Morgan will all play a huge role in the adoption of Bitcoin. Come to think of it, JP Morgan took a 180-degree turn from having negative things to say to crypto to having their own JP Morgan Coin. He also thinks that IPOs such as Lyft and Uber are quite disappointing for investors. And for this reason, it is possible to see more get involved with cryptos.
