This month in crypto: what the all-time high means

Well, it finally happened.

Once again, Bitcoin surpassed its all-time high of roughly $69,000, set in the last bull run.

Which means that once again, everyone who ever predicted that Bitcoin’s price would fall over the long term was wrong. Every. Single. Person.

Just think about that.

Every single well-reasoned, well-researched, well-argued prediction that Bitcoin would lose money was wrong.

Isn’t that crazy?

The all-time high also means that anyone who ever invested in Bitcoin – and didn’t sell – is in profit. Every. Single. Person.

(At least on they were on the day it actually happened. I’m sure it’ll continue to bounce up and down as it always does.)

Again, isn’t that crazy?

Especially given the crypto catastrophe that was 2022? (See bankruptcy bingo, we need to talk about FTX and in defence of DeFi.)

You might think I’m going to say something like, “This proves that in the long-term Bitcoin will always go up, and why you should never listen to the naysayers.”

But I’m not. I’m going to say what I always say… this proves no one knows anything.

Very few people saw the Terra Luna collapse coming (see I declare bankruptcy!)… and virtually no one saw the FTX fiasco coming.

If you believe in Bitcoin, it’s easy to laugh at people who doubted Bitcoin when it’s hitting all-time highs.

And if you don’t believe in Bitcoin, it’s equally as easy to laugh at people losing their shirts when Bitcoin crashes.

Right now, there will be a ton of people lording the Bitcoin all-time high over their friends, acquaintances, twitter rivals and fellow columnists…

Just like those same friends, acquaintances, twitter rivals and fellow columnists lorded it over them when Bitcoin fell 75% over the course of 2022.

They’re all right and they’re all wrong.

No one knows anything.

This all-time high is not like the others

Now here’s something interesting, as Axios points out, this all-time high is way ahead of schedule.

It usually follows the quadrennial (yes, I had to google that word to make sure it was real) Bitcoin halving like clockwork.

From Axios:

The first halving hit in November 2012, when BTC was $12.20, then, 366 days later, the first all-time high to make the news hit: $1,127 (a more than 90X gain).

If you look at the table above, you can see: After each high, BTC price has eventually fallen to a bottom well below the high. That lowest-low (the nadir) marks a turnaround.

The intrigue: Then there's this crazy consistency for the next two halvings. Twice, from nadir to all-time high it's about 1,065 days (1,062 and 1,068).

From halving to all-time high it's been about 535 days (525 and 548).

From last nadir to April 20, btw? 528 days. Yeah. Suggesting a late September, early October peak — if past is prologue (which seems crazy to suggest it even might be).

Bitcoin's never before broken a prior peak before a halving.

But this time it did.

Whether you believe in the halving all-time high cycle or not (I feel like it’s more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than an actual response to the halving. But what do I know?) it is clear that Bitcoin has broken its regular pattern.

Why?

Well, for a change, that one’s easy.

We have the world’s most successful ETFs ever to thank for that. See: one trillion dollars…

Now two big questions remain. 

One:

Will Bitcoin stick with its regular pattern and go on to hit even bigger all-time highs around 530 days after this year’s halving? 

(The Bitcoin halving is happening in roughly one month’s time, so 530 days from then will be in early October.)

I have no idea, but it’s shaping up to be an interesting seven months, isn’t it?

Two: 

“Wen alt season?”

The other (so far) predictable pattern in crypto is that around the time of the Bitcoin all-time high, “alt season” kicks off and sends many other crypto projects on a tear.

Or, if you want a more specific definition, here’s one from blockchain center: 

“If 75% of the Top 50 coins performed better than Bitcoin over the last season (90 days) it is Altcoin Season. Excluded from the Top 50 are Stablecoins (Tether, DAI…) and asset backed tokens (WBTC, stETH, cLINK,…)”

According to Coin Telegraph, alt season is “close” but not here yet.

You’ll know it’s alt season when you start seeing newspaper stories about degens making $1 million on random memecoins… and refusing to sell.

But as I already noted, “this time is different”, and no one really knows how this bull run will go.

But it’s going to be fun finding out.

Craig Wright is finally officially not Satoshi Nakamoto

Remember the court case I told you about last month (and the whole history of the Craig Wright saga) to prove, once and for all, that Craig Wright is not the creator of Bitcoin?

Well, the judge ended up ruling on it surprisingly quickly, saying, the evidence against Wright aka faketoshi was “overwhelming”.

From Reuters:

Judge James Mellor said at the end of closing arguments on Thursday that the evidence Wright was not Satoshi was "overwhelming".

"Dr Wright is not the author of the Bitcoin white paper," Mellor said. "Dr Wright is not the person who adopted or operated under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto in the period 2008 to 2011."

COPA – whose members include Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's payments firm Block (SQ.N), opens new tab – said the ruling was "a win for developers, for the entire open source community and for the truth".

"For over eight years, Dr Wright and his financial backers have lied about his identity as Satoshi Nakamoto and used that lie to bully and intimidate developers in the bitcoin community," a COPA spokesperson said in a statement.

"That ends today with the court's ruling that Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto."

Honestly, this is a real win for crypto, after years and years of this maniacal billionaire bullying the community. 

And there is now even talk of trying Wright for perjury, which could lead to a prison sentence.

Okay, that’s all for today.

I know this was a relatively short one, but I’m writing to you from a train on my way to the airport, and I’m about to reach my stop, so I’d better start packing my stuff…

Thanks for reading.

Harry 

Full disclosure: At time of writing, I held the following cryptos: Ethereum, IOTA, Radix, Mina Protocol, Aleph Zero.

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