FX.co ★ When will Bitcoin hit $50,000?

On Monday, British multinational corporation Standard Chartered raised its forecasts for Bitcoin (BTC) for the next year and a half. According to the updated forecasts, the cryptocurrency could reach $50,000 by the end of 2023 and $120,000 by the end of 2024.

In its updated analysis, Standard Chartered stated that the recent increase in BTC's price could prompt Bitcoin miners to accumulate more reserves and reduce the amount of sales, which will exert positive pressure on its price. Geoff Kendrick, head of crypto research at Standard Chartered Bank, said the increase in miners' profitability per mined Bitcoin can be achieved by reducing sales, thereby maintaining an influx of funds, reducing the net supply of BTC, and increasing BTC prices.

Currently, the mining process leads to the minting of 900 new Bitcoins daily. And a rising BTC price means miners need to sell less of their revenue to cover their costs. This will force them to hold onto their tokens as miners anticipate higher prices.

Although miners have recently been selling 100% of their new coins, a price increase to $50,000 may result in them needing to sell only 20%–30% to continue operating. This is equivalent to miners having to reduce the number of Bitcoins sold per day from 900 to just 180–270.

Another upcoming event that could prompt miners to hold their BTC for a higher price is the Bitcoin halving, which is set to occur on April 16, 2024. This is a reduction in the number of new tokens entering the market. Currently, the reward for a block is 6.5 BTC. But after the next halving, the block reward will drop to 3.25 BTC, with 450 BTC minted daily.

In anticipation of previous halvings, Bitcoin's price historically bottomed out between 517 and 547 preceding days, which coincides with the most recent market bottom for BTC on November 19.