Huobi co-founder Du Jun does not believe there will be another crypto bull market until the end of 2024 or early 2025.
Speaking to CNBC over the weekend, he said that judging by past market cycles, there may not be another one for around three years. He said that “we are now at the early stage of a bear market,” before adding:
“Following this cycle, it won’t be until end of 2024 to beginning of 2025 that we can welcome next bull market on bitcoin.”
All About The Bitcoin Halving
Jun believes that Bitcoin market cycles are all closely tied to halving events. Prices have surged into a new bull run in the year that follows the Bitcoin halving in previous cycles. The next halving is currently scheduled for May 4, 2024, in 803 days. So, if history rhymes, late 2024 could be takeoff time again for crypto markets.
The halving of block rewards for miners will reduce it from the current 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block. There was little market activity following the previous halving, which occurred in May 2020, until October and November of the same year. By mid-December, the previous all-time high had been surpassed.
The current market cycle has been different from previous ones, however, as there are more influential factors, and there are now institutional investors involved and exchange-traded products. Jun attested that predictions were no longer that easy to make:
“It is really hard to predict exactly because there are so many other factors which can affect the market as well — such as geopolitical issues including war, or recent Covid…”
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has also been talking bear markets and said that many developers would even welcome another crypto winter. His comments came at the ETHDenver event, which wrapped up on Feb. 20.
“The people who are deep into crypto, and especially building things, a lot of them welcome a bear market,” he stated.
Crypto Markets in Retreat
Crypto markets are currently down around 38% from their peak in mid-November, and they could fall a lot further if previous bear markets are anything to go by. The Bitcoin ‘fear and greed’ Index was still reading ‘extreme fear’ with a value of 25.
At the time of writing, most major crypto tokens were trading flat on the day, and total capitalization was around $1.87 trillion, according to CoinGecko.
Bitcoin was still below $40K at $39,363, but Ethereum had clawed a little back to trade at $2,750. Solana (SOL), Terra (LUNA), and Shiba Inu (SHIB) had all gained 6-8% on the day.
