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Bitcoin price ‘sideways boredom’ may last 18 months — new research

Bitcoin price 'sideways boredom' may last 18 months — new research

Bitcoin (BTC) faces up to one-and-a-half years of “boredom” as the bull market gathers steam, a new prediction says.

In the latest edition of its weekly newsletter, “The Week On-Chain,” analytics firm Glassnode predicted an “arduous” period for BTC hodlers next.

Glassnode: Bitcoin hodlers set for 12 months’ “gradual accumulation”

Thanks to gaining 70% in Q1 this year but then struggling to hold its ground, Bitcoin is dividing opinion when it comes to future price action.

With the 2024 block subsidy halving in sight, some believe that a dramatic uptick will characterize the coming year, while others believe that it will take longer — perhaps until 2025 — for a new all-time high to hit.

For Glassnode, there are signs that a classic pre-bull market phase is playing out, but long-term holders will still need considerable patience.

Investigating the “liveliness” of the BTC supply, which it describes as “the propensity of Bitcoin holders to spend or hold their coins,” researchers revealed mass accumulation.

“Currently, Liveliness is in a multi-year macro downtrend, having peaked in May 2021 when bear market first set in. We can see a similar structure has formed to the 2018-20 cycle, as coins slowly but surely migrate into cold storage and are removed from the market by the HODLer cohort,” they explained.

“These HODLers are currently accumulating coins at a rate of around 42.2K BTC/month, suggesting that the price insensitive class are absorbing a non-trivial portion of the currently available supply. If we compare this behavior to prior cycles, we can see that this regime of steady and gradual accumulation commenced just over 2-years ago, and suggests that another 6 to 12-months may be ahead of us.”

Bitcoin Hodler Net Position Change annotated chart (screenshot). Source: Glassnode

They added that decreasing exchange balances likewise points to the supply becoming increasingly illiquid — out of reach in private cold storage and not for sale.

Bitcoin wealth transfer “uninterrupted”

As Cointelegraph reported, the more speculative end of the hodler base — so-called short-term holders — is also in focus currently.

Related: Most ‘fear’ in 3 months as $26.4K becomes key — 5 things to know in Bitcoin this week

These investors have hodled coins for a maximum of 155 days, and their aggregate cost basis — around $26,400 — is on the radar as a short-timeframe support zone.

Continuing, Glassnode noted that based on wallet entity size,…

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