Bitcoin news live: Price rally pushes BTC past four-year milestone

Analysts have often noted how bitcoin appears to follow a four-year cycle, with peaks and troughs fitting into this pattern.

Some have attributed it to the way the cryptocurrency was created, whereby roughly every four years the mining rewards are halved. Whatever the reason, the phenomenon means that anyone who has ever bought bitcoin and held it for at least four years has never lost money.

It also typically means that bitcoin rarely ever trades below its four-year moving average, which has just passed $20,000 – the all-time high seen at the peak of the last cycle in 2017. As one commenter pointed out, “the 2017 top is now the absolute bottom!”

The latest period of calm across the crypto market has given some investors hope that bitcoin and other leading cryptocurrencies are in a period of consolidation ahead of another rally.

One of these is Greg Beard, a noted Wall Street investor who made a name for himself trading in the natural resources sector, who told Fortune this week that he believed bitcoin could hit $200,000 by the start of 2027.

“It’s hard to know where bitcoin’s price will be at, say, the end of the year,” he said. “But if you’re a fundamental-style investor that believes in bitcoin as a store of value, it should be worth multiples of today’s price in five years, I’d say at least five times.”

(It’s worth noting that analysis from Glassnode earlier this week warned that a “capitulation event” may also be on its way if short-term holders decide to cut their losses.)

Bitcoin has managed to hold and consolidate the price gains it made yesterday that pushed it above $40,000, but still remains in limbo.

Pseudonymous analyst PlanB – who has racked up more than 1.5 million Twitter followers over the last year despite his Stock-to-Flow projections occasionally being overly optimistic – predicts that the current market stasis could be about to be severely disrupted with a major upwards movement.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s decision to legalise bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies comes just six months after he vetoed the bill.

Circumstances have changed a lot since then for the Eastern European country, with Russia’s invasion prompting a flood of crypto donations to assist in their defence and humanitarian efforts. Zelensky’s signing of the “Virtual Assets” bill on Wednesday comes after cryptocurrency donations surpassed $100 million.

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The latest data from blockchain analytics firm Glassnode show that $1.2 billion has left Coinbase over the last week, potentially signalling a significant increase in institutional accumulation and adoption.

But despite the dwindling supply, Glassnode notes that there is still the potential for a “capitulation event”, as have been seen in previous market cycles.

“We are now two years on from the major capitulation event in March 2020 that saw bitcoin prices plummet over 52 per cent, fall from $8,000 to $3,800 in two trading days, and marked the end of the 2019-20 bear cycle,” Glassnode’s latest research note states. “Capitulation events like this often signify a complete and total flush out of all remaining sellers, turning the tides in the favour of the bulls.”

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A peculiar price spike overnight for bitcoin has been described as a “middle finger” by market commentators, after surging $3,000 in the space of minutes before a flash crash saw all its gains wiped out as quickly as they were made.

A more modest price rally is now underway, taking the price of BTC back above $40k on more solid footing. There was a similar, though not quite so extreme, price spike last week, as bitcoin continues to trade in the range it has been within for three months now.

The head of one of the world’s largest payments processors has said that cryptocurrency will “redefine a lot of the financial world going forward”.

In a new interview with CTech, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman said: ““I think the initial things that everyone thinks about crypto, buying and selling it, and what the price of bitcoin is going to be tomorrow, that’s the least interesting part about digital currencies to me. That is thinking about digital currencies as an asset class. To me, the real exciting thing about digital currencies is what kind of utility can they provide in payments.”

The comments come just months after PayPal launched crypto buying and selling in the UK.

Bitcoin’s muted price action can be attributed to continued economic uncertainty amid geopolitical crises, according to DailyFX strategist Nicholas Cawley.

He’s been in touch to offer his thoughts on why the crypto market is currently in limbo.