Some have said that this halving won't have as much effect as the last two, but it's still a reduction in monetary inflation from 3.7%/yr to 1.8%/yr, which is far from nothing, and in fact I see it as permanently bringing BTC out of the inflationary era and into the deflationary era. I'm not sure that we'll see 20k again in 2020 (though it could happen), but I think that 10k+ is quite likely several months after the halving. Historically, the post-halving runup has happened some time after the halving, presumably after people started to really feel the reduced supply.
For now though I don't see enough enthusiasm or other upward pressure. To the institutional investors who most push the market, BTC is largely seen as "leveraged gold", but the US/worldwide economy looks fine for now on its surface, fiat inflation isn't a widespread concern, etc. (BTC also has fundamental value beyond its value as "gold" -- a hedge against inflation and fiat collapse --, but this is a large component of the price currently.) So absent any major news, I think that the trendline is slightly downward for now. ("Major news" would be mostly regulatory-related, such as an approved BTC ETF or increased regulatory pressure. Probably the downside risk is higher than the upside risk here.)
One point of upward pressure is that there may have been some tax-loss-harvesting sales in Q4, which would now disappear. Not sure how big of an effect this was. And you might justify early-year volatility as people locking in gains ASAP in tax year 2020.
I predict that we'll sit in the 6k-7k range for some time between now and the halving, and although I wouldn't be too surprised to see prices in the lower half of that range, I'll guess near the high end, leading to my prediction of 6751-6800 on April 1. On the other hand, I predict that the supply reduction as well as mounting worldwide economic shakiness will cause a large runup (at least above 10k) in the second half of 2020. In the unlikely event that I win, please donate the BTC to a BTC-accepting charity of your choice (eg. intelligence.org or fee.org).
Lots of economic havoc. Everything is down; it's like the opposite of the "everything bubble" which has been happening for the last several years. Stocks are down, which is expected, but GLD, Bitcoin, and even TLT (=long-term treasuries) are also down. Where is the money disappearing off to? Are institutional investors really selling everything and then putting the cash "under their mattresses"?
I was especially surprised by long-term treasury yields. People are saying that the high yields are because the US is about to spend trillions of dollars on the coronavirus response, but I always thought (based on past behavior) that the treasury markets didn't really care about US debt. It'd be interesting if yields went way up -- to several percent --, which would turn this recession into a full-blown debt crisis as well. I don't think the Fed would let it happen, though, and I suspect that their intervention would not be enough to cause hyperinflation or any other short-term disaster, either, this time.
The Fed was already propping up the economy, and now they've turned it up to 11. At some point this is going to cause so much mal-investment & disconnection between the real economy and the financial system that everything really just collapses. It could happen this time, though maybe not: the USD being the global reserve currency strengthens it a lot. I've previously predicted that the collapse would come in a few decades. Regardless, the Fed's actions here very much reinforce my skepticism of the fiat economy in general. I'd much rather own a lot of BTC than participate fully in the Fed's/US's crazy game of Monopoly.
I think that the recession is good for BTC medium-term. People are selling now because people are selling everything now. But 2008 was what motivated the creation of Bitcoin, and the same things are happening now. I could see ATHs this year.
You have seen very good
![Grin](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/grin.gif)
This post around the March bottom
But what was the big difference between these 2 posts?? only 2-3 moths period between them??