Bitcoin had a bearish weekly close, as the price dipped further below $40,000. The benchmark crypto has experienced low volatility in the past week, but the market could see more action as the monthly close approaches.
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At the time of writing, Bitcoin trades at $38,900 with a 2% loss in the last 24 hours.
In the short-term, market sentiment seems to be turning bearish as market participants expect more downside price action. The long-term trends opposite and market participants seem more optimistic about BTC’s future performance.
A recent survey conducted by Finder asked 35 industry experts about their price expectations for Bitcoin by end of the year. The result put the first crypto by market cap back to $65,000 by that period.
In addition, the experts expect BTC’s price to continue its multi-decade long rally to $179,000 by 2025 and over $400,000 by 2030. As seen below, the long-term expectations for the cryptocurrency remain in the green.
As noted by Find, the panel changed their short-term views for BTC’s price. The same survey was conducted in January and experts predicted Bitcoin to hit a new all-time high at around $75,000 by the end of 2022.
The experts have different opinions on BTC’s short-term performance. Two experts believe Bitcoin could stay rangebound for the entirety of 2022.
In that sense, Bitcoin could stay stuck between $30,000 to $50,000 and frustrate the expectations of the entire market. The bulls expect new highs or at least a return to $60,000, and the bears expect it to go below $30,000.
BTC tends to move opposite of what the majority desires. One of the more pessimistic experts Dimitrios Salampasis, FinTech lecturer at Swinburne University of Technology, believes BTC’s price could be negatively impacted by the energy consumption narrative in the short term. Salampasis said:
(…) the conversations around the environmental impact of mining may lead to blanket bans of crypto mining activities, which could additionally contribute to Bitcoin scarcity and the increased prices as a store of value. Last but not least, Bitcoin could be used as a hedge against fiat currency fluctuations.
Bitcoin To See More Demand As People Lose Trust In Central Banking?
In that sense, most of Finder’s expert panel believes BTC will be replaced as the number one crypto in terms of popularity. Most aim at Ethereum taking over as it becomes more “energy-efficient” if it can migrate to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus.
As seen below, 50% of the panel expects this outcome while 12% answered unsure of this question. Some experts believe Ethereum will become dominant because of its use cases, others because of its interoperability features, and more.
Optimistic experts believe Bitcoin could see as much as $100,000 by end of the year on the back of people losing trust in central banking and governments. In that scenario, people could turn to BTC as a decentralized asset to hedge against the legacy financial system.
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Ben Ritchie, managing director of Digital Capital Management, said:
Increasingly, ‘trust’ is becoming a central consideration for investors – can we trust the economic system and the power brokers driving it? Trust has been lost and, with the economy in uncharted territory, Bitcoin is forming a viable alternative solution. Placing ‘trust’ in code and mathematics, with no intervention, has significant global appeal.
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