Veteran crypto analyst and co-founder of DecenTrader who goes by the name “flibflib” on X expects Bitcoin to grab back some of its lost ground before the end of the year.
He says that there is a chance BTC could close 2023 priced at around $35,000, but warned holders to be prepared for local price lows before the rally.
Speaking to the crypto news outlet Cointelegraph, the founder market intelligence platform DecenTrader revealed that the price target for Bitcoin has to resonate with its long-term holder base.
Crypto Analyst Predicts Bitcoin To Hit $35K Mark By Q4 2023 and $46K In Q1 2024
Flibflib expects the upcoming block subsidy halving event on the Bitcoin network in 2024 to play a major role in the token’s price performance. He predicts the BTC/USD trading pair to go as high as $46,000 by April but warned that there will be losses before the surge.
In a recent X post, he had predicted that another BTC price dip would crush any remaining “hopium” for Bitcoin and “seems like the next step” for the crypto asset.
Responding to a question about where he sees the long-term floor price for Bitcoin, Flibflib says it would depend on the circumstances that unfold in the real world.
He referred to the events of the COVID-19 market crash in March 2020, when BTC hit a floor of slightly over $3,000. The crypto analyst now expects Bitcoin to hit lows of around $16,000 which was observed in the aftermath of the FTX crash.
Adding that if in any case, the market were to avoid a “black swan” event, then BTC could maintain a low of somewhere around the $20,000 level.
Reduce Supply Coupled With Increased Demand Could Lead To Bitcoin Price Surging
When asked if he still expects a price reversal behavior in Q4 2023 as miners and holders accumulate more Bitcoin in anticipation of a post-halving bull run, Flibflib said that based on previous cycles, the market will see a contraction in the supply of freshly minted Bitcoin leading up to the halving.
He believes that the pattern of lower supply with “increased speculative demand” is more likely to repeat, which will help push up BTC prices.
Giving his opinion on what Bitcoin price action event this year surprised him the most compared to previous pre-halving years, the veteran crypto analyst pointed out the case where the asset failed to break its 100-week moving average in 2023. According to Flibflib, this was widely noticeable because, in the past, such an event has always confirmed the onset of a bull market.
However, Flibflib says that timing-wise, the uptick in price from the historic lows of 2022’s crypto winter is in line with what the market has seen before.
Spot Bitcoin ETF Approval Only A Matter Of “When” Rather Than “If”
Sharing his thoughts on the possibility of a Bitcoin spot ETF approval by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the crypto expert criticized the regulator for enacting a policy of “delay at all costs” which was seen with the unreasonable rejection of crypto asset manager Grayscale’s spot Bitcoin ETF application.
He is under the notion that Wall Street giants such as BlackRock, who also filed for a Bitcoin spot ETF listing, wouldn’t have attempted it without doing any research and is unlikely to anticipate failure. Flibflib believes it is a matter of “when” a Bitcoin ETF will be approved rather than an “if”.
U.S. Inflation the “Elephant In The Room” For Bitcoin And Crypto Markets
Previously, the DecanTrader chief had called U.S. inflation the “elephant in the room” with regards to the Bitcoin cycle. When asked how he thinks inflation could affect Bitcoin post-halving, Flibflib said the longer the Consumer Price Index (CPI) number remains high, the less disposable income the retail sector will have to invest in riskier assets.
He explained that the cost of capital has increased due to the risk-free rate of returns being higher. This has led to fund allocation towards riskier assets becoming a less attractive option in the market. He warned that the longer the trend remains the “status quo”, the less capital will be sought in investments like Bitcoin.
He also provided tips on ways to track BTC prices. Usually, the analyst combines directional price momentum with market positioning, like long/short ratios, funding rates, and open interest rates, when determining short-term movements in the market.
XRP And DOGE Among Alt-Coins Expected To Surge Post-Halving
Although he is a Bitcoin maximalist, Flibflib expects Ripple (XRP) to do well in the next cycle due to a positive outlook in its legal clash with the SEC. He is also adamant about Dogecoin (DOGE) doing well because there is anticipation that Elon Musk could integrate the token into X.
Without a black swan event, Flibflib predicts BTC to hit around $35,000 by the end of the year and possibly go as high as $46,000 sometime before the halving in the first quarter of 2024.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $26,213.33 – up almost 2% from the previous day’s price.
