BTC price prediction: $200,000 in the next 12 months.
Bitcoin (BTC) is soaring.
It just reached a new all-time high of $122,000:
Source: TradingView
A huge congratulations to everyone who took my advice to buy the dip.
I think we’re just getting started.
If you’re still asking yourself “where are we in the bitcoin cycle,” I have some news for you:
The 4-year bitcoin cycle has been broken.
Bitcoin has followed a reliable 4-year rhythm since its creation.
This preprogrammed event — which automatically cuts the new supply of bitcoins in half (hence the name halving) — has created a predictable upcycle every time it’s happened.
Crypto prices tend to bottom 12–18 months before bitcoin undergoes a halving. They then rally into the halving… then rally harder in the year following the halving.
Source: RiskHedge, Yahoo Finance
Bitcoin jumped 8,000% after the first halving… almost 30X in the year following the second one… and it handed out 6X gains after the third one.
But this time, something changed.
The fourth Bitcoin halving took place on April 20, 2024. Yet bitcoin price is up just 90% since.
According to the playbook, we should be in full-blown crypto mania by now. We’re not.
By this point in the four-year cycle, flows would also have started coming into smaller tokens. I’m talking about the so-called “alt-season”. Yet BTC remains firmly in control.
It’s become evident the bitcoin cycle has been broken.
ETFs broke the 4-year cycle.
BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF — the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) — rewrote the record books.
In just 11 months, it amassed over $50 billion in assets, outpacing every ETF launch in history. IBIT now holds more assets than BlackRock’s gold ETF, the world’s second-largest gold fund.
Why does that matter?
It means the big boys have entered crypto.
Wall Street, pension funds, banks, and even 401(k) accounts can now get exposure to bitcoin with a single click.
That turned bitcoin from a niche asset into a global macro asset. Like it or not, crypto became part of the traditional financial system.
Before, Bitcoin marched to its own beat, obeying the clean rhythm of the four-year halving cycle.
Now it moves in sync with the big markets… reacting to inflation data, interest rates, tariffs, and central bank decisions.
Just look at how closely bitcoin price has been following the S&P 500 this year:
Source: Koyfin
The ETFs brought tens of billions of new investor capital into crypto.
Washington’s crypto U-turn will bring in trillions more.
Remember, just nine months ago, the US government openly hated crypto.
Senators were launching anti-crypto armies. The SEC was suing every crypto project that moved.
Longtime Venture members know regulatory uncertainty was the #1 thing holding crypto back. For three consecutive years, Bitwise’s survey of professional investors has pointed toward regulatory concerns as the top reason they’ve dodged crypto:
Source: Bitwise
What a difference a few months makes.
Congress just declared this week the Crypto Week.
The US House wants to push through three major crypto bills that have been stuck in limbo for years.
It’s the most serious, coordinated crypto policy push ever, by a longshot.
I’ll explain more about it tomorrow.
In short, the bills will give the big Wall Street institutions the green light to rush into crypto. It means even more money will start flowing into crypto.
How high can bitcoin go?
In August 2023, when bitcoin was trading for $27,000, I told members of my premium crypto advisory RiskHedge Venture it was headed to $150,000. Bitcoin price has more than quadrupled since:
Source: Google Finance, RiskHedge Venture
I think my bitcoin prediction was too conservative.
Based on all the positive regulatory developments, I believe BTC could run to $200,000 in the next 12 months.
Here’s what I recommend buying…
The 4-year cycle breaking is a great thing.
It means crypto won’t be handcuffed to a rigid calendar anymore.
Going forward, crypto bull markets could last for years, just like the stock market.
And those brutal -80% crashes we saw every four years are most likely behind us.
But I wouldn’t buy bitcoin.
It’s digital cash. That’s all it’s ever going to be. It’s smart to own some bitcoin. But it’s not the best crypto if you’re targeting fast growth.
My top two large crypto picks remain Ethereum and Solana.
But the real upside lies in smaller, under-the-radar crypto projects.
The kind we focus on in our Venture portfolio.
You can read about three such small cryptos here.
— Stephen McBride, Chief Analyst at RiskHedge
Where are we in the bitcoin cycle? was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.