Bitcoin is likely to enter a bear market and the next big rally will likely not come until late 2024 or early 2025, said Du Jun, co-founder of one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world.
It’s waiting for the Bitcoin halving
Du Jun told CNBC on Sunday that bitcoin prices are often affected by a technological change in the cryptocurrency network called “the Bitcoin halving.”
The Bitcoin halving is an important feature of the Bitcoin and refers to a halving of the amount of BTC tokens that the miners receive as a reward for validating transactions. The last halving took place in 2016 and 2020 and crypto analysts expect the next one to take place in 2024.
A bull market took place in 2017 and 2021, so the next one is likely to happen about a year after the halving in 2024, Du said. The idea is that the halving reduces supply, causing the price to rise.
“If this trend continues, we are now in the early stages of a bear market,” Du told CNBC.
However, he added: “It is difficult to predict exactly when the BTC price will bounce back. This is because there are so many other factors that can also affect the market, such as geopolitical issues, including war or the COVID pandemic.”
“After this cycle, it will not be until late 2024 to early 2025 before we can welcome the next bull market.” (A bull market is a period when prices are constantly rising, while a bear market is the opposite.)
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A drastic price drop
The crypto market has fallen dramatically since November 2021. At that time, the Bitcoin price reached an all-time high of almost $69,000. Now, at the time of writing, the price of 1 BTC token is only around $38,770, which means that the price has almost halved.
Both cryptocurrencies and the stock market have been hit hard by the Federal Reserve’s plans to raise interest rates sharply in 2022. The possible invasion of Ukraine is also not doing the financial markets any good.
More and more investors therefore expect a new Bitcoin winter, which means that we are entering a period where prices will fall for a longer period of time and not recover. The last winter occurred between late 2017 and mid-2019, when bitcoin fell from around $20,000 to less than $4,000.