After failing above $40,000 yet again, the Bitcoin price has been sold for five days straight. Here’s why this could spell the end (for now) for BTC.
Bitcoin is trading at $35,640, down $829, (-2.34%).
This report may not be pleasant reading for Bitcoin bulls. Nonetheless, I’ll proceed anyway.
Firstly, I think BTC will be around for a long time to come and continue to play an important part in portfolio diversification. However, some valid arguments support a bearish outlook.
Store of Value. Since its inception, the narrative surrounding Bitcoin has shifted. Initially, BTC was deemed a low-cost, decentralized peer-to-peer currency. This then shifted to the digital gold theory, followed by the argument that Bitcoin would act as ‘reserve currency’ for the crypto ecosystem. Finally, the narrative has focused on the Bitcoin price, offering an effective hedge against inflation and acting as a store of value.
BTC has dropped 45% in the last 6 weeks. This detracts from the Store of value argument.
Inflation Hedge. The massive money printing exercise in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic added trillions of dollars to central bank balance sheets. Subsequently, this excess liquidity found its way into asset prices. In addition, supply chain disruptions further increased inflationary pressures sending consumer prices through the roof.
Certainly, for the first trimester of 2021, The Bitcoin price proved to be an efficient hedge against inflation. However, inflation is increasingly looking ‘transitory.’ Commodity prices have reversed sharply from the highs as supply starts to catch up to increasing demand.
Furthermore, the Federal Reserve may soon start to slow asset purchases and embark on a tightening cycle.
This could seriously impact the inflation hedge argument for BTC. If inflation cools, this should put some downward pressure on Bitcoin.
Institutional Demand. There has been a pick up in institutional demand over the last year. Having said that, I would put forward that it is the wrong sort.
Rather than widespread institutional offerings, a small number of institutions have large highly-concentrated positions.
Microstrategy has a BTC position that is the largest contributor to its valuation, far outweighing its core business. Furthermore, MSTR has raised considerable capital at junk bond levels to finance further BTC accumulation. This could pose a serious risk to both MSTR and the Bitcoin price.
BTC probably has a more loyal fan base than any other tradable asset. Its biggest supporters will point to it’s incredible performance over the last decade. And thats fine, but BTC has also seen a number of violent drawdowns.
They would argue you should just HODL (hold on for dear life) and BTFD (Buy The….Dip) if you had been prepared to have your money tied up for long periods of time, generating negative returns, the strategy has worked out well.
Therefore, the most recent dip will have likely brought new HODL’ers into the market, increasing the overall length and raising the average purchase price.
Assets with heavily skewed positions can be prone to violent reversals..think Gamestop, AMC, etc. These stocks had disproportionate short positions. Bitcoin has the reverse.
If I scroll out long enough, I can see that Amazon has been an amazing investment over the last 20 years. However, the investors that paid $113 in December 1999 didn’t break even until September 2010. And that doesn’t take into account the loss of opportunity and cost of carrying the position.
The stock market also enjoyed an amazing run of form in the decade preceding the Covid-19 pandemic.
In March 2020, the dam finally broke, and equities, gold, base metals, and pretty much everything else experienced catastrophic once-in-a-lifetime losses.
Subsequently, BTC lost 60% of it’s value in three weeks.
In times of crisis, asset-class correlation increases as investors panic-sell everything they have.
Despite some positive news flow over the last two weeks, Bitcoin has failed to hold on to recent gains.
BTC soon reversed a brief rally above $40,000, and momentum is becoming increasingly bearish.
The 50-day moving average crossed below the 100-day towards the end of May. Moreover, and more importantly, has just completed a bearish crossover of the 200-day average.
The MACD also highlights the change in sentiment and, although still positive, is heading lower.
Volume has been trending lower over the last month, suggesting buyers have either already ‘bought the dip’ or are on the sidelines awaiting lower prices.
The ultimate danger for the Bitcoin price would be a failure to hold the $30,000 low-point of May’s crash. This could lead to a deeper decline that could lead to BTC extending lower to $20,000.
I am painting a pretty bleak picture, and of course, there remains a chance that Bitcoin could see a reversal of fortune soon.
Having said that, I don’t see any positive development on the horizon just yet.
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