Momentum GrowingThe crypto industry and Bitcoiners in particular will remember 2024 as a very successful year. That final bastion of TradFi acceptance, ETFs, was taken. Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs have attracted more than $34 billion in inflows. Bitcoin crossed that big psychological barrier of $100,000 and is now a 6-figure asset. Total crypto market capitalization exceeded a remarkable $3.6 trillion. BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF, IBIT, has become the most successful ETF ever launched on the market.
But as is usual in Crypto, the journey was far from straightforward. Ethereum, and many other Altcoins, lagged behind. Solana paced ahead of other Altcoins and saw more than 300% growth. Memecoins took off. In some parts of the industry, mania took hold. Pump.fun, a platform that enables anyone with a $5 wallet and an idea to create a token in two minutes, saw 4.5 million tokens launched. The Phantom wallet, commonly used for on-the-go memecoin trading, reached top positions in the App store. A particularly low point was reached when Pump.fun temporarily launched a live-streaming feature. When things deteriorated rapidly, pump.fun had to quickly disable the feature. In the last few weeks, momentum accelerated as some of the users who had quit the market with FTX' collapse returned. The prices of 'old' coins such as XRP, Cardano and others, took off.
Traders continue to wait for possible pull-backs of BTC to the $80,000-90,000 range. But for now, momentum seems to be building and instead, Bitcoin has ranged above $100k for the longest time so far over the past 24-48 hours. More momentum could be on the way. A very crypto-friendly US administration is coming. US regulatory winds against crypto are likely to shift. All the while, interest rates are likely to drop further, leading to more available liquidity in the market.
We all know that History does not repeat but it can rhyme. Bitcoin's price cycles regularly included one year of decline followed by three years of growth. If this trend continues, then 2025 may be the last, and possibly the most explosive year of this bull-cycle. For now at least we can say: momentum is growing.
