1 January 2024
Crypto analyst Ali Martinez recently provoked some thoughts in the crypto community as he highlighted a historical pattern that provides insight into where the Bitcoin price may be headed. This comes as debate continues whether or not a potential approval of the pending Spot Bitcoin ETF applications is a ‘sell-the-news’ event.
Is History Set To Repeat Itself?
In a post on his X (formerly Twitter) platform, Martinez noted that Bitcoin had a bearish January the last two times it saw a strong performance in the last four months of the preceding year. If history were to repeat itself, Bitcoin’s price could decline this month, considering that it ended the last four months in 2023 on a high.
The crypto analyst suggested that those bearish Januarys were likely a result of profit-taking, something which he warned could happen again based on history. Market intelligence platform Santiment recently reported that most Bitcoin holders are in profit. Therefore, the projection of a profit-taking trend in January is not far-fetched.
This trend already seems to have begun in December, as NewsBTC reported that Bitcoin whales sold around 50,000 BTC worth $2.2 billion. While a bearish January is expected based on history, there is also the argument that those last two years didn’t have any event as bullish as the Spot Bitcoin ETFs, which could be approved as early as this week.
This argument also leads to another discussion on whether approval of these funds by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will cause Bitcoin’s price to pump or dump. So far, crypto analysts have been divided on what is likely to happen. Based on certain predictions, Bitcoin could either rise to as high as $69,000 or crash to as low as $35,000.
Initial Impact Of Spot Bitcoin ETFs Are Overestimated
VanEck’s advisor, Gabor Gurbacs, recently opined that the short-term expectations over a Spot Bitcoin ETF are overestimated. Analysts like Galaxy Digital predict that these funds could see inflows of up to a billion in their first month of launching. However, Gurbacs begs to differ as he predicts that only a few $100 million would flow into these funds in the short term.
The amount of inflows that could move into these funds initially is significant, considering the impact it could also have on Bitcoin’s price. Trading firm QCP Capital had predicted that Bitcoin could revisit its all-time high of $69,000 if these Spot Bitcoin ETFs see enough capital in their first few weeks of trading.
Meanwhile, in the long term, Gurbacs is bullish on the impact these ETFs will have. He predicts that Bitcoin could experience a similar growth to the one Gold enjoyed upon the launch of Gold ETFs. Gold’s market cap has grown exponentially since the first Gold ETF launched in 2004. Bitcoin’s market cap could also run into trillions with the help of these Spot Bitcoin ETFs.