Following an incredible parabolic rally and recovery during the first half of the year in 2019, Bitcoin price has spent the second half of the year in an ongoing downtrend that has taken the price of the asset back into a range not traded in since the depths of the bear market.
Does this mean that Bitcoin has a lot longer to wait before it enters a bull market once again? Or is this just a shakeout before the market moves up once again?
Bitcoin Price Blasts Below $7,000, Is The Crypto Market in Trouble?
Bitcoin price this morning smashed below $7,000 an is now trading at roughly $6,950, striking fear into the hearts of bullish crypto investors that had long thought the bear market was over.
But with prices reaching former bear market levels, the integrity of the entire crypto market is now in question and any chance of Bitcoin’s next bull run beginning may be up in the air.
Related Reading | Could PlusToken Scam Be Responsible for Broken Crypto Market Structure?
According to the highly-cited Bitcoin stock-to-flow model, the crypto asset should be on pace to reach as much as $55,000 per BTC when the asset reaches its halving this coming May. While Bitcoin price may be known to surprise people and go on unstoppable parabolic rallies, rising from $6,000 to $55,000 in less than one year seems unrealistic at best.
In fact, the recent price action doesn’t match with historic Bitcoin market cycle behaviors at all. Miners are capitulating – an occurrence that typically happens after each pre-defined halving as a result of having the block reward miners receive slashed by 50%, while operating costs only increase.
One theory for this is that the PlusToken scam that saw just under 200,000 BTC scammed from Chinese crypto investors may be to blame. The scammers have been selling Bitcoin into the market at a rate of 1300 BTC per week, causing an extreme imbalance of supply and demand.
Another potential reason for the failed rally was due to market participants being so overly bullish on Bitcoin fundamentally, that it drove the price of the asset up too quickly, resulting in an echo-bubble or fractal of the 2017 crypto hype bubble.
Related Reading | Legendary Bitcoin Short Seller Says To Watch For Base To Form Before Buying
However, because the rally failed to break to a new all-time high, it also failed to capture the attention of the mainstream public once again. With no new money coming into the crypto market, and with plenty of money having left after being burned by the resulting bubble pop, Bitcoin has found itself once again looking for a bottom.
According to macroeconomist Mark Dow, Bitcoin price needs to begin to build a base much like it did back at the start of the year before a bottom could be considered as “in.”
