- Bitcoin rallies up to more than $18,000 in the first two weeks of January
- Mixed analyses from social media regarding the next position of Bitcoin
- Crypto exchange FTX is selling its recovered assets worth $5 billion
The top 1 cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC), reached more than $18,201 as of January 12, 2023. It came back to the $18K zone after swirling in the $16,500 support since the crash of FTX in November 2022. BTC has also made another record since July 2021: a series of green candles for eight days straight.
While a large red candle may show up anytime soon, the crypto community celebrates this short-term gain after many days of negative news. Twitter has seen a large influx of Bitcoin discussions regarding the next road of the significant cryptocurrency. It has been a mixture of optimistic and pessimistic views since the US Federal Reserve’s Consumer Price Data (CPI) will be revealed within the week.
BTC went down to almost 65% in the last year after many factors from the following:
- The Russian-Ukrainian war
- Depegging of Terra’s UST stablecoin
- Continuous crackdown of US authorities
- Fallout of FTX
The events mentioned above created a domino effect on the crypto market, which forced multiple collapses and bankruptcies in the sector. Skeptics have called out on the blockchain industry, calling it a “dead” business and saying that Bitcoin was no more, especially after it was revealed it performed the worst compared to stocks and gold.
Bullish Buyers on FTX’s BTC Sale
According to a report from Cointelegraph, FTX has recovered more than $5 billion “in cash and liquid cryptocurrencies.” While the confiscated money from the Bahamas SEC does not count, the failed crypto exchange wants to sell what it caught.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of FTX, replied to a tweet regarding his resolution to his customers. When someone tweeted that FTX’s sale is a “going concern,” he replied,
“Yup, that is always the best recovery scenario for customers. They being made substantially whole is a real possibility; we were possibly a few weeks away from getting there in November (the US is solvent, should make everyone whole).”
The Next Phase for Bitcoin
As of press time, there have been debates on the internet regarding the next series of candles in the crypto market. Some have speculated that the win streak could break anytime soon as “what goes up must come down.” Analysts have also said that if it does manage to go up more than $17,500, it may have a hard time keeping the price up there.
In June 2022, the most vital support was $18,000 until it continued to drop down in November, making $16,500 the current firm bottom. If ever black swans overshadow the recent short-term run of BTC – like the Digital Currency Group liquidity issue and the Fed’s CPI data presentation – it may either return to $16,500 or go even lower. Some have even predicted that BTC can go as low as $10,000.
Bitcoin still holds considerable control over the market’s movements and will cause massive volatility to the altcoins, whether the price goes up or down.
Whatever the case, more businesses have started implementing Web3 in their business models while investors are taking a more cautious approach to crypto assets. Whispers of recession and ongoing regulations continue to keep more buyers from flocking to the market. Right now, it is still too early in the year to determine the outcome of Bitcoin before 2024 (which also marks BTC’s next halving) arrives.
