What does Bitcoin’s latest drop back below $10,000 mean?
The only bulletproof bitcoin price prediction is that it will keep going up and down.
Bitcoin has dropped back below US$10,000 in a bearish market. Despite some good looking indicators it looks like bitcoin and the cryptocurrency markets can't get the rise to stick. The current drop might be linked to lingering Tether troubles, or maybe it's just one of those things.
The $10,000 figure has no particular significance beyond being a mental and emotional benchmark, but for something like bitcoin this is arguably just as important as any more technical indicator. It also has some historical significance, marking the start of the cryptocurrency market's meteoric late November and December rise.
When bitcoin inevitably readjusted after that meteoric rise, it took about a month to come back up above $10,000.
Soothsayers, naysayers and doomsayers
The coin's attracted a lot of controversy, with opinions often being polarised between the enthusiastic "$100,000 by 2019" crowd and those who think it's a Ponzi scheme that will inevitably come crashing down. There's no shortage of predictions either, most of which fail to eventuate.
It's always worth taking a step back and looking at bitcoin prices on a slightly grander timeline. The coin is approaching a decade old, and years of that were spent well under a dollar until a bit of probable market manipulation gave bitcoin wings.
In the last 12 months alone there have been quite a few failed runups and crashes, such as those in May, July and September, when bitcoin shed about a quarter of its total value. The January crash was a real ride though, with bitcoin losing about 70% of its value in a few weeks, much to the delight of the doomsayers who predicted that it would just keep going down to zero.
But it looks like bitcoin is here to stay. There's no obvious extinction event on the horizon, and after seeing its previous heights there will always be someone willing to buy it up when the price drops. The most enthusiastic soothsayers weren't on the money either though. Bitcoin is still nestled firmly in the realm of wild speculation rather than real currency.
If there's one prediction you can count on it's that bitcoin will go up, and that it will go down. All that's left to do is enjoy the ride, and maybe place a wager if you feel so inclined.
Warning: Spending more than you're willing to lose may put you at risk of not being able to enjoy the ride, and other things.
An undeniably good year for bitcoin. Source
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Picture: Shutterstock
Disclosure: At the time of writing the author holds ETH, IOTA, ICX, VEN, XLM, NANO, SALT, BTC
