By now there must be only a few percent of people that haven’t heard about Bitcoin and its dramatic rise in value. When bitcoin started out, no one turned an eye – everyone thought it was a gimmick without any value since it’s a ‘fake currency’. Now those people, and everyone who failed to realize bitcoin’s potential, are regretting it. Since its slow start in 2009, bitcoin has continuously risen in value, and fast forward to 2024, it managed to cross the $60,000 mark. To put that in perspective, bitcoin had a value of only 10 cents at the start of this decade.
Those who realized bitcoin’s potential early have become millionaires and even billionaires now and their success has motivated many others to join the investing pool of bitcoin. It has seen a significant rise in the recent few years and 2024 particularly has been very good for bitcoin as it achieved new peaks of value and survived as a growing asset even as the global economy crashed due to the pandemic. Thousands of investors have invested in bitcoin to insure their money from another economic crisis and if you too want to join them then just click here to know how.
However, after all that being said, a question has been gnawing at the minds of everyone who has invested in bitcoin – would it go down? No one knows bitcoin’s future for certain but there is a possibility that the bitcoin market might crash and there are many potential reasons why. In this article, we’ll explain several reasons why bitcoin might go down in 2024 and then you can decide for yourself if bitcoin is the investment you ought to make or not.
The dreaded crypto-winter is coming
Bitcoin is in its biggest bull market right now. Every 3 or 4 years, bitcoin’s value peaks enormously and this year is bitcoin’s year to peak. Many analysts claim that if bitcoin keeps rising, it may very well hit its peak of $100,000. The ex-founder of BTCC went even a step further and stated that bitcoin can achieve $300,000 by the end of 2024. However, he and other analysts have warned in advance about a crypto-winter that will hit bitcoin as soon as it reaches its peak.
This crypto-winter will make bitcoin crash from its peak and maintain this for a few years. We heavily recommend you as an investor to stay alert with the bitcoin prices if you have invested in it and not take the crypto-winter lightly as a slight volatile dip that is commonly associated with the bitcoin market. This dip in value would be anything but slight – it’ll make bitcoin lose 90% of its value from its peak state and it won’t subside away soon either. If you as a bitcoin trader invest in it and don’t sell bitcoin well in time before it falls, you could lose large amounts of money later on.
Even so, some experts believe that 2024 has presented different circumstances for bitcoin than ever seen before, and thus it would be unlikely to see something as drastic as the crypto-winter that came in 2017. Whether the crypto-winter arrives or not, we recommend you stay on your highest alert for the upcoming days.
Bitcoin still remains as volatile as ever
Predicting anything with bitcoin is almost an impossible task. You never know if its value will rise or will it dip, and for day traders this is their least favorite market to invest in. This volatile nature is what scares away most investors and even the investors that do invest in bitcoin don’t do it for the short-term or mid-term, but for the long-term hoping its value will only keep rising in the future.
The bitcoin market is still young and growing and as such any significant changes shake the market immensely. Consider the example of the last few months where Tesla announced that they will buy $1.5 billion worth of bitcoins, which they did, and bitcoin gained the skyrocketing value of $60,000. However, when again Tesla announced that they are not going to buy any more bitcoins out of concern for bitcoin’s environmental effects, the market crashed again, coming as low as $34,000. Though not so apparent at this point in time, there is a chance that investors in the future might get exhausted with bitcoin’s ever-changing market and stop investing in it altogether.
The environmental effects of bitcoin are now being realized
The bitcoin cryptocurrency mining network consumes a lot, and we mean A LOT, of electricity and power. According to the BBC, bitcoin’s annual power consumption amounts up to 120 Terawatts. It might not sound much on paper but to put it into perspective, bitcoin has the same annual power consumption of the entire country of Sweden and more than that of Argentina. The concern for all environmentalists is that this power does not come from renewable sources of energy but non-renewable sources such as coal, oil, gas, etc.
A major factor supporting this is the fact that most of the bitcoin mining comes from China, where the primary source of energy is coal. That’s why bitcoin mining is contributing to a large number of carbon emissions which is only increasing with its value. Considering this, the UN assembly might issue regulations or the investors themselves might stop investing in bitcoin to stop the carbon emissions. Experts believe that while there are cryptocurrencies that are the future of our economy, many of them which don’t require mining, bitcoin is not one of them and will crash sooner or later – even in 2024.
There are alternatives to bitcoin that have more potential
Cryptocurrencies like Cardano and Ripple don’t require any form of mining which is why many believe that they, and not bitcoin, are the future of cryptocurrency. This is why more and more people have started investing in bitcoin, a few out of concerns for the environment while the others see a potential in these cryptocurrencies that bitcoin doesn’t have. Sooner or later, many investors are going to cash out of bitcoin and instead invest in these cryptocurrencies – again, there is a chance it might happen this year itself.
Conclusion
There are many reasons that bitcoin can go down in 2024. Judging these reasons and investing wisely is your choice and if we helped you decide that, then please consider following our website for regular updates as it will help us out immensely.