From the 2011 bottom, there was 24 months of growth until the January 2014 peak, followed by a 13 ½ month bear market correction, a length of time 43.75% shorter than the growth period. After it bottomed out, there was meager/slow growth for ten months, swinging may be $150 in price at most. January 2015 marked the steady increase in growth that ended in January 2018. From bottom to top, that took 37 months, at which 43.75% would mean 20 months correction period, which would mean a bottom would be in August, 2019. Measuring the short history of two cycles, there’s not much data to speculate with.
However, only 2 miners are “profitable (if you don’t include the $2k+pricetag) at $3500, meaning is primarily mined by large operations that have subsidized electricity, 2 phase liquid cooling units, or solar/wind/other power. Further price drops eliminate retail mining and threatens large operations with massive investments. It’s hard to believe that those interests and their investors wouldn’t step in to prop up the price; if they didn’t, has no incentive for miners, and it’s steps to lower mining difficulty might never catch up with the falling price.
Also, the 2014-2015 correction was before mainstream media hype and the hysteria. The growth until late 2016/early 2017 was hyped, scams were plenty, the earliest mainstream adopters came in (and got REKT). Unlike the previous cycle, there’s far too much mainstream money dumped into for “whales” to afford to cross the threshold of mining cost/profit ratio, even with the subsidized and alternative energy/cooling operations which need to cover many other costs. It’s sideways or up unless some miracle in mining difficulty reductions occur.
I also expect a huge war between nChain, which doesn’t rely on miner consensus for direction and creating use case, and Core developers. Whatever you think of Craig Wright, he has a plan and patents to make a global yet state-free currency on which a new internet can be built, basically all of the sh*tcoin dapp and Internet of Things platforms built on . Core and miners might not be able to keep up if you prefer or not.
Published at Thu, 13 Dec 2018 09:54:46 +0000