Bitcoin Price Outlook for 2023: Bulls vs Bears

The year 2022 has been challenging not only for Bitcoin but for the cryptocurrency market as a whole. Bitcoin, the most valuable cryptocurrency in the world, has seen a decline in its market value of about 65% over the entire year, leaving the crypto community reminiscent of the ‘good old days’.

Fans of cryptocurrencies and blockchain were taken aback when a string of unfavorable occurrences, such as the crash of Terra Luna, the collapse of the largest cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, and the looming conditions of the macroeconomy occurred all at once.

Yet, everyone is pondering several things, the most interesting of which is: what will happen next?

Will the price of bitcoin ever go back up? Or will it experience the same negative trajectory as in 2022?

The following article is an in-depth read that will assist you in determining all of the potential outcomes regarding the price of Bitcoin in 2023. What do analysts and institutions predict and has Bitcoin moved up or down the market as per expectations?

NFTs On BTC

The term “non-fungible tokens” (NFT) is most commonly used to refer to tokens based on Ethereum; however, as of late, all the talk has been on Bitcoin NFTs, which are also referred to as “Ordinal NFTs” or “Bitcoin Ordinals.”

Ordinal NFTs are essentially Bitcoin-based NFTs. It was made possible by activating a feature on Bitcoin’s main net in January 2023 known as inscriptions.

There are currently thousands of NFTs being inscribed straight into the blockchain used by the Bitcoin network, which may be detrimental to the value of bitcoin as a digital currency in the long run.

Users can immediately embed up to four megabytes of data onto the Bitcoin blockchain thanks to the most recent development in the cryptocurrency industry, which is also known as Ordinals and inscriptions.

Cryptocurrency enthusiasts are very excited about this new feature. It has caused a rift within the Bitcoin community due to the existential considerations that it raises over the future of Bitcoin and its purpose.

Bitcoin blockchain has always contained arbitrary data unrelated to finances; one could argue that the secret message in the genesis block is the first example of this. More of this data could be included on the Bitcoin blockchain due to the most recent two significant updates to Bitcoin, known as SegWit and Taproot.

Inscriptions only offered the means to readily enable the loading of such data, in addition to a constructed ordering system that seeks to establish a margin of non-fungibility over satoshis.

The Bear Market is Back, and BTC is Up

As of today, February 25, 2023, the bitcoin price is hovering above $23,000. It even touched $25,000 a few days ago for the first time in the preceding three quarters. Bitcoin has demonstrated tremendous growth and has climbed over the past week. Professional Bitcoin investors are anxiously awaiting more bull run pulls and hope for it to stabilize at values higher than $30,000.

But what do the naysayers think? For context, we are not in any way fans of trusting market predictions. Crypto markets are known to always move in unexpected ways. The more people say that the price of BTC will fall, the more it goes up and vice versa. Therefore, it may just be that those who see the bear run coming, will again fall into the trap of their own technical evaluation.

Some analysts, corporates, and financial institutions have a bearish outlook on Bitcoin’s value. They are adamant in their belief that the value of Bitcoin could drop in the not-too-distant future. They viewed this surge, not as a “bull run” but as a massive “bull trap” that throws weak players out of the market. 

Mark Mobius, a veteran global investor and the founder of Mobius Capital Partners, has previously projected that Bitcoin will experience a significant decline in 2022 and has stated that the price may drop to the $10,000 range.

Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets research at VanEck, a worldwide investment manager, believes Bitcoin to decline to levels of $12,000. He cites increasing energy prices as the reason for his prediction.

In addition, the forecast made by the international bank Standard Chartered regarding Bitcoin is also startling. They forecasted that the price of bitcoin would drop to $5,000 by the year 2023.

The consensus among financial industry professionals is that Bitcoin will not be able to stage a significant price recovery in the not-too-distant future due to the combination of higher interest rates and more restrictive monetary policy.

When the market is volatile and unpredictable, investors will avoid making risky investments or acquisition of risky assets like Bitcoin. Also, investors holding Bitcoin might decide to sell their positions, putting unnecessary pressure on the price once more.

Final Words

There are several perspectives and forecasts regarding Bitcoin, and although some are bullish, others are gloomy as ever. Only time will tell what is next for the general value of the cryptocurrency market, but Bitcoin, renowned for its hardiness, has significant potential for a comeback.

According to Gate.io crypto exchange, the BTC market sentiment is strongly pointing in favor of a bullish market. It means that investors are confident in the market and settle their long positions, expecting a pushback to levels above $25,000.

Over the last decade, several industry professionals have consistently forecasted that the bubble surrounding Bitcoin price will soon collapse. Despite this, the cryptocurrency served as a model for others to follow and enabled hundreds of investors to amass significant fortunes over time and turn some individuals from poverty to riches.