Bitcoin limits weekly loss, but major crypto bull market still to come as halving approaches

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) ended this week down 2.1% after posting a hat-trick of weekly gains. What is notable, however, is that the benchmark cryptocurrency has closed above the $50,000 mark every day since Valentine's Day.

The oldest in the world during the week Crypto rose as much as 1.5% to reach a high of $52945.05. The weekend price is expected to be around $51,076.44, compared to $52,160.20 last Friday, according to data from Yahoo Finance.

The digital currency broke $50,000 on February 13 for the first time since December 2021. Later in the day, it experienced a slight decline and even closed below the milestone. But the price has been above this mark every day since February 14, indicating an upward trend.

The positive crypto sentiment has continued to strengthen recently as hoarders eagerly await the highly anticipated halving event, which is expected to take place in April. Halving is a process in which Bitcoin mining is halved, thereby reducing the number of new Bitcoins entering the market. The last halving took place on May 11, 2020 and the reward for mining a BTC block fell from 12.5 to 6.25.

Earlier on Wednesday, Tom Lee, managing partner at Fundstrat Global Advisors, made a bold statement, saying that Bitcoin could rise to as much as $150,000 by the end of the year.

“I think it is [Bitcoin], you know, could be up to $150,000,” Lee said in an interview on CNBC. “With the ETF, demand is improving while supply is shrinking… and if monetary policy is eased, which we expect, then that helps risk assets and Bitcoin hold up, and I mean, that's another reason why I don't do it. “I don’t think there will be a drawdown anytime soon.”

Looking for Alpha contributor Clem Chambers said in his February 14 report that the upcoming Bitcoin halving has the potential to push Bitcoin to $120,000.

“Bitcoin appears to be experiencing a classic breakout as the April 19 halving approaches, so it is not ingenious to suggest that the market should adjust to this bullish time horizon and begin a rally. The next stop when the breakout comes.” Vertical is at $60,000, an easy jump for the explosive Bitcoin. While this type of price action may seem wild, it is not for a volatile instrument like Bitcoin, and to put it into context, if a Nasdaq stock went from $470 to $600 it wouldn't cause much of a stir . And when you scale Meta’s performance over the last 18 months, a Bitcoin surge to $120,000 doesn’t seem at all outlandish,” Chambers wrote.

Bitcoin price action: -0.8% at $51,129.08 at 2:24 pm ET on Friday; +113.4% in the last 12 months; and +15.6% so far in 2024.

According to CoinMarketCap, the total crypto market cap currently stands at $1.96 trillion, down 0.8% from Thursday.

Notable news:

Social media platform Reddit (RDDT) said in its IPO that it has invested some of its excess cash in Bitcoin and Ether.

According to Chainalysis, 2023 saw a significant decline in cryptocurrency transactions related to illegal activities. According to Chainalysis, $22.2 billion was laundered through cryptocurrencies, down 29.5% from $31.5 billion last year.

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