Izmir, Turkey – January 14, 2018: Memorial bitcoin among gold bars. Bitcoin is a worldwide digital currency that isn’t controlled by a central authority such as a government or bank.
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These days, the only players expressing interest in bitcoin are those that bought at the top and are now left carrying the bag, along with institutions that, in a corporate sense, did much the same.
Bitcoin just ain’t bitcoin anymore. The digital currency – supposedly independent of the predators of Wall Street, untraceable and a panacea of all the poor man’s ills – is no longer a way to stick it to the man.
The man in fact, is a fan – bigly!
Even denizens of crypto who made fortunes from it are now having to dig into their own pockets to bail out their ventures.
The only one getting fat is Kim Jong Un…. oh wait!
So what now for crypto?
Bitcoin is stuck.
Well, not really. Bitcoin is digital gold, so that makes gold physical bitcoin.
Or “boomer bitcoin,” as I like to call gold – especially as the golden roundness of an Eagle or Britannia seems to lately have outshone the spawn of Satoshi.
Bitcoin priced in gold
Credit: ADVFN
So what do I see coming in my crystal ball?
First of all, I re-iterate: charts are very good at predicting the past. They are also very good at plotting likely paths. So rather than nailing down the future – which, I must say, I’ve done rather well with for gold over the last few years – they are better used as guides to the road ahead, showing the most likely route among a small selection of obvious pathways.
So here is bitcoin and a few of the paths it is likely to head down.
Yes, I’m still a grizzly bear.
Some of the paths that bitcoin may head down in the future
Credit: ADVFN
Let’s just say the bullish “W” doesn’t look very likely. A drop to $50,000 also doesn’t feel much like a true bottom.
$20,000 seems a bit bleak, even by my standards. So I still think $30,000-$40,000 will ultimately mark the bottom.
However, there are enough powder kegs and flying sparks around to turn all of this on its head. In the end, though, you cannot know the unknown unknowns until, of course, you do.
At this rate, by the time bitcoin finally bottoms – perhaps a year from now – the market will already be pricing in the President’s successor. The prospect of a Democrat The prospect of a Democrat returning to power would certainly not be bullish for bitcoin.