There has been very little action on crypto markets over the past 24 hours. The majority of high cap coins are cooling off again following minor movements over the weekend.
Bitcoin is no exception, remaining range-bound as the tedium continues. BTC managed to top $9,300 again a few hours ago but has since declined back below $9,180, which is still within its channel of consolidation.
The longer-term support zone is at the $8,800 level, so a break below this could see things go south very quickly, which is likely to drag all of the altcoins down with it. If the opposite occurs, it could also be bad for the current alt season with Bitcoin reclaiming some of that lost dominance.
Looking at the longer-term view, analyst and proponent of the stock-to-flow (S2F) model, PlanB, has compared previous post halving price movements with current market conditions.
The dots represent price increases since the previous halving and show how quick past cycles were. The market cycles appear to be extending, as pointed out by Tyler Durden.
“Fascinating to look at the cycles laid out like that and reaffirms my belief that this next bull market will take years to play out and be less volatile.”
The devaluation of fiat, and global macroeconomic crisis this time around could have a larger impact on the price of BTC and its next bull run. But on the other hand, with less money about, there may well be less to invest this time, lengthening that cycle even further.
In a related post, ‘Plan B’ polled his over 116k twitter followers about their views on when BTC will reach a new all-time high,
“Do you think #bitcoin price will be above last All Time High (20K) next 12-18 months?”
With over 13,000 respondents at the time of writing, the overwhelming majority of around 70% voted yes for a new ATH above the previous in the next year to year and a half.
On-chain metrics for the Bitcoin network are making new highs, which dispel any notions of miners capitulating after the halving. Hash rate for the BTC network has recently returned to its all-time high of 135 EH/s, according to Bitinforcharts.com. The last time it was this high was in mid-May.
The difficulty has also hit a peak as also confirmed by ‘Plan B,’ and reported by CryptoPotato on Monday. A ten percent increase in mining difficulty, combined with those big hash rate numbers, could be the catalysts for a sustained move higher for the king of crypto.