Decoding The Surge And Slump: Bitcoin's 2023 Price Rollercoaster Unveiled

  • 9 months ago
Maria Gracia Santillana Linares, a Forbes reporter, joins ‘Forbes Talks’ to discuss the price swings of Bitcoin throughout 2023.

0:00 Introduction
0:19 The Surge Of Bitcoin
2:18 EFTs And The Crypto Market
4:28 The Up And Down Of Bitcoin's Market
5:42 The Maturity Of Bitcoin, What's Next?

Category

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Tech
Transcript
00:00 Hi, everyone, I'm Rosemary Miller here with Maria Grazia Santillana-Lenares, a reporter
00:08 here at Forbes, here to tell us about the price movements of Bitcoin in 2023.
00:15 Thank you so much for joining me today, Maria.
00:17 Thank you for having me, Rosemary.
00:20 Absolutely.
00:21 So Maria, could you elaborate on some of the factors that contributed to the surge of Bitcoin?
00:26 Yeah, of course, there's been a lot of things throughout the year.
00:30 We really saw kind of the power and the impact on price movements coming from regulatory
00:34 and policy concerns.
00:35 If you look at the graph, there's a lot of peaks and troughs where kind of we saw either
00:39 positive or negative views.
00:41 And so, you know, on the macroeconomic scale, inflation rate hikes, Bitcoin has kind of
00:47 always, you know, reacted regardless of whether whether the economy is moving.
00:53 This year, we really saw it kind of be seen as like the fight to safety.
00:56 So like a very interesting example of this was when Silicon Valley Bank kind of fell
01:01 in March.
01:02 It presents an interesting case study because you really saw the price increase slightly
01:07 right before the government decided to kind of protect SVB depositors.
01:11 And then as kind of the market cooled down a little bit, we saw investors and, you know,
01:16 whether that be cryptocurrency focused investors or just traditional investors kind of realize
01:20 the impact that the government has on monetary policy and the risk that your, you know, your
01:28 fiat can be in some of these traditional institutions.
01:31 Again, we saw a kind of flow to safety is what we like to call it into Bitcoin.
01:36 And then, of course, you know, it was the year of a lot of bad actors.
01:39 You know, we have the Sam Bankman free trial.
01:41 We had CZ, the head of Binance, kind of step down.
01:46 And so what's interesting compared to last year, right, we did still see some movements,
01:51 but they were much the volatility was much less compared to last year.
01:55 So while FTX, you know, fall in November of 2022 and kind of the market collapsed after
02:00 that this year, the movements were much I would say they were much smaller, which I
02:05 think to a lot of people kind of points a little bit of a maturation in the market.
02:10 You know, we're seeing this idea of bad actors and this idea of big characters priced in
02:15 already to the current price of Bitcoin.
02:18 And so I've been seeing a lot of optimism around the U.S. potentially approving ETFs,
02:24 exchange traded funds.
02:26 Could you could you tell me, like, what's the significance of that potential shift and
02:30 how might it affect the crypto market?
02:32 Oh, absolutely.
02:33 I honestly think that was one of the biggest movers in terms of the price this year.
02:37 We saw that every time there was a major announcement, you know, whether that be BlackRock, one of
02:42 the biggest asset managers in the world, filing their their intention to list a Bitcoin spot
02:47 ETF to even just news of, you know, these asset managers are meeting with the SEC to
02:53 determine what the ticker price would be for this ETF really have an impact on the movement.
02:57 So one of the biggest kind of price increases we saw was in June when BlackRock filed that
03:01 first intention.
03:02 But yeah, I think it's definitely the news of the year.
03:06 It's something that many people are expecting in Q1 of 2024.
03:09 And as soon as January 10th is the next deadline as to when the SEC would kind of have to postpone
03:15 or say that they need more time to review.
03:18 But definitely it's one of the biggest events and kind of themes that we've seen this year
03:23 in terms of the prices that every time that there is a significant and usually positive
03:27 news that'll happen, we kind of move up and even negative.
03:32 Right. Like we saw in October, I believe the SEC just missed.
03:36 So the SEC has been kind of fighting with grayscale over its ability to transform their
03:43 Bitcoin trust into a spot ETF.
03:45 And so that was one of the big court cases that we were tracking over the summer.
03:48 And in October, the SEC, you know, first, a federal court said that the SEC had to review
03:55 the application.
03:56 Right.
03:57 And so that was kind of seen as a big win for the industry.
03:58 We saw Bitcoin's price rally a little bit.
04:00 But then in October, the SEC had a deadline for an appeal where it could appeal the federal
04:05 court's decision as to whether it had to or could not look at the application.
04:10 And it just didn't file an appeal.
04:11 And that also saw a little price bump in October that we kind of saw move the industry along
04:17 like, hey, even no news is good news.
04:20 Right.
04:21 There's no other further steps kind of preventing, you know, an ETF to be passed in the foreseeable
04:26 future.
04:29 So what about the program slowdown in supply of Bitcoin?
04:33 How did that impact the rebound of Bitcoin's price?
04:36 Yeah, of course, I think you're talking about the big thing that's kind of scheduled to
04:40 happen.
04:41 I believe the latest dates put in around March, but we'll say first half of 2024, which just
04:45 means that, you know, it'll get more difficult to produce Bitcoin.
04:48 And the idea is that the price would go up.
04:51 So that's certainly something that we're looking at, you know, when it comes to next year.
04:54 And we're not the only ones, a lot of investors, people both in the crypto space and in traditional
04:58 finance are expecting, right.
05:00 Depending on when the ETF finally gets approved, it might be two events that really kind of
05:06 define what Bitcoin's price next year will be, whether they're close together, whether
05:10 they're further apart, how much it'll increase.
05:12 But yeah, essentially, right.
05:15 If you make it more difficult to mine Bitcoin, it means that each Bitcoin is more valuable.
05:19 And so the price should theoretically go up.
05:23 There's still a lot of kind of questions and I think speculations as to what that final
05:27 price will be and what will the baseline be.
05:31 But it's something that we're still keeping an eye on.
05:33 You know, when we think of the first half of 2024, it's something that will definitely
05:37 define what Bitcoin's year in terms of price will look like.
05:42 So how has the crypto market evolved in terms of maturity?
05:46 Yeah, I think it's definitely something that, you know, you talk to people in the industry
05:50 and also a little bit of crypto skeptics, too.
05:52 And it's definitely compared to last year, we're matured.
05:55 And I think the biggest evidence to that is just how these bad actor movements are priced
05:59 in.
06:00 Right.
06:01 Again, if we look back to November of 2022, when FTX fell down, crypto decreased.
06:06 I can't give you the correct amount right now, but over the year it was something like
06:10 65 percent.
06:11 That's following a year where it hit a peak of $65,000 a coin.
06:15 For reference, 2023 started at $16,000 a coin and we're ending around the $41,000 to $43,000
06:22 range.
06:23 And so, again, you see a big variety here.
06:26 The fact that we've had any kind of price volatility movements following that actor.
06:30 So again, say, Bitcoin being convicted, it was still there.
06:34 Right.
06:35 There was kind of like a reassurance and kind of like a little dip before it went back up.
06:39 And then I think the biggest one was when CZ kind of, you know, stepped down from Binance
06:44 as part of a $4 billion settlement with the Treasury and the DOJ.
06:49 That, you know, again, still volatile.
06:51 We still saw some movements, but it was definitely in terms of magnitude, much less than it would
06:56 have been in years past.
06:58 And so I think that is reassuring a lot of investors that, you know, OK, things can happen.
07:04 Right.
07:05 And we always talk about the U.S. audience in the U.S. market is very focused on these
07:08 regulatory actions and these bad actors.
07:11 While Asian markets sometimes don't react as quickly to that.
07:16 But I think that's the biggest thing, at least for me, you know, that like maybe we're becoming
07:19 a mature, a more mature market if we're at a complete, you know, you have to define what
07:26 a mature market looks like.
07:27 The whole are we there yet?
07:29 Is the market perfect?
07:30 No, there's still movements.
07:31 In an ideal world, there wouldn't be that many.
07:34 But it's definitely I think we're growing past a little bit of the speculation and the
07:38 big highs and lows of 2021 and 22 and stabilizing a little while still seeing some growth.
07:44 Maria, this has been great.
07:46 Thank you so much for joining me today.
07:48 Of course.
07:49 Thank you so much for having me.
07:50 Absolutely.
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