Will Bitcoin Soar Higher In 2024?

The most popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin saw a whopping 154% surge in 2023. From around $17,000 at the start, it breached $44,000 mark on December 5. Of this, much of the gains came later in the year. The overall market cap also swelled to $1.62 tn from $831.8 bn at the beginning of 2023.

- PRIYA KAPOOR

If 2022 was the year that almost wrote off cryptos, can 2023 be termed as the year of their comeback? Despite a churn of technological innovation, market fluctuations, regulatory changes, and fall of titans (Both Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX, and Changpeng Zhao, CZ of Binance, pleaded guilty of violating money laundering rules), cryptos bounced back. The most popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin saw a whopping 154% surge. From around $17,000 at the start of the year, BTC went up to $44,000. Of this, much of the gains came later in the year. The overall crypto market cap also swelled to $1.62 trillion from $831.8 billion at the beginning of 2023.

Says Parth Chaturvedi, Investments Lead, CoinSwitch, "BTC has recorded a substantial price surge and has been breaking past crucial resistance levels with healthy volume. Various narratives have influenced this price action, with investor sentiment undeniably strengthening." According to Rahul Pagidipati, CEO, ZebPay, this growth can broadly be attributed to increasing interest in the crypto market by both retail and institutional investors. "Global macroeconomic factors have also contributed to this growth with countries coming together to decide the future roadmap of crypto assets through regulatory frameworks," says Pagidipati.

BITCOIN IN 2024

So what does 2024 look like for Bitcoin? Will it soar even higher? There are two main events that can drive the Bitcoin prices up: BTC's fourth halving event, and the US Security Exchange Commission's (SEC) decision for spot BTC ETFs in the US.

THE HALVING EVENT