Lets’ Ride The Charging Bitcoin Bull

In the past few weeks, Bitcoin has experienced a positive price trend, breaking above key indicators like the 100-day and 200-day moving averages, which has given rise to some bullish sentiments.

As of 23 October 2023, Bitcoin had breached the resistance level at $30,000, which has acted as a psychological barrier in the past. 

30-days Bitcoin Price Chart as of 23 October 2023 (Source: CoinMarketCap.com)

Standard Chartered had in July 2023 projected that the price of Bitcoin could reach $50,000 by the end of 2023 and $120,000 by the end of 2024.

Let’s take a look at some of the recent developments which could turn this projection into reality with APAC DAO:

1. New Bitcoin Use Cases

On 9 October 2023, Robert Linus, a core contributor to ZeroSync, published a whitepaper which proposed the use of Ethereum-style smart contracts to allow for more expressive smart contracts on the Bitcoin network.

This would expand the possible use cases for the Bitcoin network by catering to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized applications (dapps).

The prospective future use cases for Bitcoin enhances the utility of the legendary cryptocurrency, thereby making it more attractive to long-term investors seeking a reliable digital asset with solid fundamentals.

Primer on BitVM (Source: X.com)

2. Improved Bitcoin Transactional Efficiency

On 10 October 2023, Bitcoin exchange River published a report which noted that Bitcoin’s layer-2 Lightning Network handled approximately 6.6 million transactions in August 2023, a 1,212% increase over the 503,000 transactions recorded in August 2021.

The increased usage of the Lightning Network which allows for faster transaction speeds and lowers transaction costs for Bitcoin enhances the viability of legendary cryptocurrency as a medium of exchange for everyday transactions. thereby driving increased institutional and retail adoption. 

Estimated Growth in Routed Lightning Transactions(Source: River.com)

3. Tokenizing Artworks with Bitcoin 

On 11 October 2023, Galaxy Research and Mining published a report which noted that 1.14 million image-based inscriptions were minted into NFTs in the first 200 days of Bitcoin Ordinals’ operations.

Bitcoin Ordinals is a protocol that allows for the creation of NFTs directly on the Bitcoin blockchain which helps boost market demand for the legendary cryptocurrency, thereby driving up its market price in the long run in line with the principle of supply and demand.

Cumulative NFT Mints on Bitcoin Ordinals (Source: NFTNow.com)

4. All-Clear for Bitcoin ETF

On 13 October 2023, it was reported that the U.S.

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will not appeal a recent court ruling that found the SEC’s rejection of Grayscale Investments’ proposal for a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) was incorrect.

This paves the way for a potential spot bitcoin ETF with JP Morgan predicting that the SEC is likely to approve the first Bitcoin ETF in the next few months.

The approval of a spot bitcoin ETF would make the legendary cryptocurrency more accessible to traditional investors, thereby increasing its market liquidity levels. 

Whilst only time will tell as to what the future holds for Bitcoin, the technical and regulatory developments for the legendary cryptocurrency are providing the pre-conditions to catalyze the upcoming Bitcoin bull run.