Bitcoin and the overall cryptocurrency market has been in a downward trend (bear market) for the entirety of 2018. It has been nearly 11 months of downwards to sideways price action, with little to no signs of a market turnaround.
Bitcoin and cryptocurrency hodlers have been waiting a long time to see this market turn around and test Bitcoin’s all-time high of nearly $20,000. However, there’s no saying when it will happen, so all we can do is wait for the catalyst that sparks a bull run.
However, some prominent cryptocurrency traders and investors, such as Brian Kelly and Mike Novogratz, believe we have already seen Bitcoin’s bottom.
Bitcoin’s lowest price since its all-time high in December of last year was on June 29, where it reached lows of $5,871, according to Coinmarketcap. Since then, Bitcoin’s price has been fairly stable for over 3 months and is currently sitting around $6,300, which is roughly 70% down from its December peak.
Meanwhile, other popular cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum (ETH) and Ripple (XRP) are down over 80% from their all-time highs. Clearly, the cryptocurrency market has already seen drastic reductions in price for quite some time.
Binance CEO on Bitcoin Bull Run
While cryptocurrency hodlers have been waiting all year for another Bitcoin bull run, Binance’s CEO Changpeng Zhao, often referred to as “CZ”, appears to be in the same boat.
In an interview on CNBC’s Crypto Trader program, CZ stated:
Even if I don’t know what will catalyze a bitcoin bull run, I am certain it will happen… Sooner or later, something will trigger it.
When CZ mentions something about the price of Bitcoin — or any cryptocurrency, for that matter — people listen, as he is the CEO of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume. Even as the cryptocurrency market has seen some $600 billion leave the market, CZ says he feels his company and the cryptocurrency market as a whole is very healthy.
Compared to January [of 2018], we are probably down 90 percent. So we only have one-tenth of the trading volume compared to what we had in January. But, compared to like a year or two years ago, we’re still trading at huge volumes. Business is still okay, we are still profitable, and we are still a very healthy business.
Furthermore, CZ stated that despite the bear market we have been experiencing, the Binance exchange has seen a steady growth of active users and Bitcoin deposits.
Binance Opening Doors to Institutional Investors
CZ’s remarks on a Bitcoin bull run happening “sooner or later” may have been sparked due to the fact that his exchange, Binance, has recently announced they are opening their doors to institutional investors.
In a recent Medium post by Binance, they stated:
As blockchain technology matures and a robust ecosystem is established, we expect a larger number of institutional investors to increase their allocation into this [cryptocurrency] asset class.
Binance is laying the groundwork for an influx of institutional capital the likes of which the cryptocurrency sector has never seen before. Developments like these are what cryptocurrency hodlers and investors have been hoping will potentially catalyze the next Bitcoin and crypto bull run.
What Else Could Catalyze a Bull Run?
Another viewpoint on what could spark a cryptocurrency bull run comes from Erik Voorhees, chief executive of the popular crypto exchange ShapeShift.
In a tweet last week, he said that the next Bitcoin bull run will be triggered by US debt.
When the next global financial crisis occurs, and the world realizes organizations with $20 trillion in debt can't possibly ever pay it back, and thus must print it instead, and thus fiat is doomed… watch what happens to crypto.
— Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) November 8, 2018
Yet another opinion for a Bitcoin bull run comes from data analysis by Bloomberg, which suggests Bitcoin may have entered a bullish phase based on the Bitcoin’s Directional Movement Index (DMI).
According to the DMI indicator, Bitcoin’s price trend broke out of the VERA band upper limit, which signals an encouraging sign for a trend change.
What do you think will catalyze the next Bitcoin and cryptocurrency bull run? Do you think we have already seen a Bitcoin bottom? Let us know in the comment section below.
