In these days, many predictions are circulating about the future trend of the price of Bitcoin in US dollars (USD).
However, there does not seem to be agreement among the various analysts, neither regarding the trend in the short term, nor for the medium/long term.
The short-term forecasts on the price of Bitcoin in USD
Regarding the trend of the price of Bitcoin in the coming days, fundamentally there are two hypotheses that circulate the most.
The first, which seems to be the most widespread, is that the period of suffering that began at the end of August should continue for a while longer.
The second, however, is that the decline may have stopped.
It must be said that the sentiment remains very low, and it is probably for this reason that the most widespread hypothesis is that of further declines.
In particular, the fact that in recent days the support placed near 55,000 USD has not held suggests to many that there are possibilities for further declines.
Moreover, already at the beginning of August, the price of BTC had fallen below 50,000 USD, and a return to that figure is considered likely by many.
However, today this small bearish phase could also come to an end.
The key point seems to be 55,300 USD. In the event that it manages to close the day solidly above this threshold, the decline could stop. However, it should be specified that a short-term interruption does not completely exclude some further decline in the medium/short term, but at least it would avoid the collapse to 50,000 USD in the short term.
The medium/long-term forecasts
The discourse changes significantly if the focus is shifted to the medium/long term.
In fact, there continue to be many who see the possibility of a return to 70,000 USD, as well as those who think that by the end of the year it could even reach new highs.
Indeed, there are still those who claim that in the autumn a new bullrun could start that might last even throughout 2025.
On the other hand, until today all three past halvings (2012, 2016, and 2020) have been followed by major bull runs that have triggered more or less in conjunction with the US presidential elections, which always take place at the beginning of November.
The halving of this year occurred in April, and on November 5th there will be the elections in the USA.
Although the situation seems actually different compared to that of past cycles, it is not at all impossible that it tends to repeat itself.
The cycle of Bitcoin
Bitcoin has a cycle of about 4 years linked to the halving. Curiously, the US presidential elections are also held once every 4 years.
Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin so that more or less the halving would always occur shortly after the elections, even if in the end instead of 4 years on average, 3 years and 10 months pass between one halving and the next, so by now Bitcoin halvings occur months before the elections.
Although in all three previous cases the halving was followed by a great bullrun, triggered months later, in all three cases the bullrun followed shortly after, or slightly anticipated, the US presidential elections.
The reason could be related to the trend of the US dollar (USD), which tends to depreciate a bit after the presidential elections.
The price of Bitcoin in the long term tends to be inversely correlated to the Dollar Index, so if this time after the US elections the dollar starts to weaken, it becomes likely again that the price of BTC will end up rising.
The predictability of Bitcoin
The trend of Bitcoin’s price is unpredictable, but its halving cycle is very predictable.
In fact, a halving occurs exactly every 210,000 blocks mined and added to the Bitcoin blockchain, and since a block is generally mined in just under 10 minutes, it is easy to predict, for example, that the next halving will occur in the spring of 2028.
The USA presidential elections are also predictable, because they always occur once every 4 years, at the beginning of November. Even when President Kennedy was assassinated, they were held 4 years after his election, and always at the beginning of November.
Less predictable, however, is the depreciation of the US dollar after the elections, but if before the elections it appreciates significantly, afterwards it inevitably tends to fall.
Even less predictable is the inverse correlation between Bitcoin and Dollar Index, so much so that sometimes in the short term it even breaks.
How can predictions be made on the price of Bitcoin (USD)?
It can be predicted with reasonable certainty that the next Bitcoin halving will occur in the spring of 2028.
That event, however, will belong to the next cycle, and not to the one currently underway that started in April of this year.
One can venture to predict, but with less certainty, that after the November elections the Dollar Index may fall.
On the other hand, in 2021, after the previous elections of 2020, it had dropped to 90 points, while in 2022 it ended up rising even above 110 points. Since the beginning of 2023, it has been moving sideways between 100 and 106 points, and it is currently at 101.6 points. There would be absolutely nothing strange if it rose a bit more before the November elections, and then perhaps started a downward period lasting more or less a year.
What cannot be absolutely predicted, however, is how much the price trend of Bitcoin will actually be inversely correlated to the Dollar Index (DXY).
In 2021 BTC rose, while DXY was falling, and in 2022, it fell, while DXY rose significantly.
In 2023 BTC started to rise again, although not by much, just as DXY was falling again, but not by much. However, in 2024 the price of Bitcoin rose much more than the Dollar Index fell, so this correlation is not so clear and persistent.