Some analysts are claiming that it may take years for bitcoin and its crypto-cousins to reach their all-time highs once again.
Bitcoin Is on the Move, but for How Long?
As we all remember, bitcoin shot up to roughly $20,000 in December of 2017. At that time, the currency seemed unstoppable, and hodlers were likely having a field day wondering where it would strike next.
Bitcoin wasn’t alone in its ascension. The currency was joined by entities like Ethereum, which rose to roughly $1,400; bitcoin cash, which shot past the $3,000 mark, and Litecoin, which exploded into the $400 range.
By January of the following year, some of these cryptocurrencies began to fall, but what was thought by some to be a minor correction turned out to be a virtual erasing of all the cryptocurrencies’ gains. Bitcoin, for example, fell to roughly $6,000, where it hung for most of the year’s latter half. By Thanksgiving, however, the asset had dropped into the mid-$3,000 range. Ethereum eventually fell into the $80 range, while Litecoin dropped below $60.
Bitcoin has now expanded by roughly 40 percent since the start of 2019. At press time, it is trading for over $5,200 – higher than it’s been in approximately five months. However, some analysts are convinced that a bull run is not in the currency’s immediate future.
They are basing their feelings on factors like the 1929 stock market crash. UBS analyst Kevin Dennean says that bitcoin is following the footsteps of previous bubbles, and reflects the great crash of 1929, the Nikkei in 1989, and the NASDAQ in the year 2000.
He comments:
The argument here is that bitcoin has gone through its bubble phase and is ready to rise phoenix-like from the ashes just as other assets and indices did in the past. We’re struck by how long it took other asset bubbles to recover their peak levels (as long as 22 years for the Dow Jones Industrials) and how pedestrian the annualized returns from trough to the recovery often are.
Most of the asset classes mentioned, including bitcoin, have fallen by more than 75 percent from their all-time highs. Thus far, Dow Jones and NASDAQ are the only ones that have recovered to their previous levels. The Nikkei collapsed roughly 30 years ago but has still not fully expanded. It is currently trading for roughly half its peak level.
Dennean further stated:
Maybe crypto-bull contingents should recover what happens after the bubble – not every bubble that bursts can recover the old high.
The Price Is Under Control
The situation sparks a curious question: could bitcoin and cryptocurrencies take as many as 22 years to once again reach their latter 2017 prices? The good news is that bitcoin has managed to keep up its present price momentum, so perhaps financial fortune has landed on crypto enthusiasts.