Bitcoin raising its value by as much as 1300% in 2017 have significantly contributed to the current market cap of the digital currency at $229 billion. In fact, it is believed that the trading volume for Bitcoin increases again as traders are now back from their celebrations during the holidays.
Most likely, Bitcoin is set to move towards $15,000 over the next few days. Bitcoin has been able to defend $13,000 price on Friday and was able to reach $14,536 on Saturday. As of writing, Bitcoin is at $14,037.
However, it is undeniable how Bitcoin has been struggling to go back to its highest price at near $20k. One of the reasons behind this is the fear of South Korea making its move towards banning cryptocurrency exchanges.
You can also blame altcoins for the difficulty of Bitcoin to hit its highest value. However, you can also look into the possibility that money being rotated out of altcoins and back into Bitcoin as the reason why it has recovered well over the last weeks. For instance, TRON has depreciated by 31% in just the last 24 hours. This could actually be an indication of investors trading TRON tokens back into Bitcoin.
Future Issues at Play for Bitcoin’s Price
Mining can be an issue that can affect Bitcoin’s price in the near future. The hash rate and its difficulty have continued to rise as more miners are now joining the Bitcoin network. Since there are many mining innovations including new hardware on the horizon, you can also expect the hash rate to continue to rise.
There are areas wherein miners are concentrated. For instance, there is a great concentration of miners found in Venezuela, China, Canada, and Washington State. The reason behind this is the price of electricity. There is a possibility that China’s government may crackdown mining operations and can significantly affect Bitcoin transactions. However, it is believed that its effects on the network may be considered short-lived. The Bitcoin network tends to adjust mining difficulty after a drop in hash rate. The adjustment, however, occurs around two weeks.
80% of Bitcoin Mined
There is also the fact that 80% of bitcoins have already been mined. And since it has a 21 million limit, this only means that Bitcoin could actually become much precious sooner that we think. As of January 13, 16,800,000 BTC have already been mined. There are individuals who believe that the limit will be reached within the next five years. However, there are others that argue that this will not happen in the next 100 years since the difficulty of mining will become more difficult.
Are we going to see Bitcoin rise over the next 12 months like how it did last year? Or will it simply stay afloat within the $15,000 range given the popularity of other cryptocurrencies? Is the decreasing number of Bitcoin be an issue that can dictate its value in the future?
Though it now holds 33% of the entire cryptocurrency market share, it is undeniable how other digital currencies are also catching up. In fact, Bitcoin is down from the 85% market share that it had last year.
