The rise and fall of Bitcoin

26. Apr. 2018

Bitcoin review
Since the beginning of April 2008 Bitcoin has gained almost 27% after a major correction.

Most traders were expecting this correction due to the past years phenomenal rise in price.

In the brief history of Bitcoin’s genesis 2008, we have seen many negative events causing price volatility such as India’s recent ban on banks engaging in cryptos, Mt Gox debacle in 2010, then the emergence of the Silk Road shortly shutdown by the FBI in 2013. With Mt Go by 2014 handling 70% of the worlds BTC transactions and 850,000 BTC’s being stolen, the exchange closed. To meet the growing demands in 2017 and increasing volume on the networks Segregated Witness solved the scaling deadlock to move things forward in mid July. Basically unity in the network was created resulting in a hard-fork and price rallied to $5000. Bitcoin Cash began mining blocks making it the official fork of BTC.the only difference between the two is that BCC does not have SegWit and it has a larger capacity. Following this China declared or threatened a stricter stance on cryptocurrencies mainly ICO’s. This triggered a mass sell off as traders panicked.

These events and security issues were enough to scare even the most seasoned trader/investor. The imminent crack down on ICO’s by the US Securities and Exchange Commission has added to the suppressed price of bitcoin. However over time the cryptocurrency market has matured and recent events have further legitimised it’s future and acceptance into mainstream use.

Sign of the times
Recently Goldman Sachs  has reportedly hired their first Crypto currency trader.
Also Barclay’s bank in Britain has partnered with Coinbase - currently one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, allowing them to open a banking facility.

The recent threat of regulation by Christine Lagarde head of the IMF has had little effect on the price of Bitcoin to date.

During 2017 - the meteoric rise we saw the price of Bitcoin rally from 743 to 19945 the ATH (all time high). In the year prior 2016, Bitcoin was valued at 360 in January and rallied to 1192 as supply decreased.

Kay Van-Peterson, analyst for Saxo Bank accurately predicted the price of Bitcoin in 2016. He says ‘ Bitcoin will be driven by a larger uptake of institutional investors and futures contracts’ and has predicated price could hit $100,000 in 2018.

The Daily Bitcoin candle chart tells us that we may have started this journey and if you look at the last correction compared to the rise in the past it is barley a speed bump.We have a Change of trend on the daily and if you look at this chart long term we could see a rise similar to the 2017-2017 Oct -Dec. I have a short term target set at the pink level. However if you read this chart as a bull run followed by a correction and continuation a 80K-100K is very possible.