What's the outlook for the Bitcoin & Crypto market in the second half of 2024?

Looking back at 2022, the crypto market began to enter a bear market due to various events, such as the LUNA crisis, which also affected Zipmex, and the collapse of FTX, causing many other entities to fail. This led to Bitcoin's price plummeting from $69,000 to nearly $15,000, causing many to turn their backs on Bitcoin and crypto.

Fast forward to the first half of 2024, Bitcoin reached an All-Time High of approximately $73,000 in March, demonstrating strong returns. The price surged early in the year following the approval of a Spot Bitcoin ETF and the approaching Bitcoin Halving, also helping Altcoins recover somewhat.

However, after the Bitcoin Halving, Bitcoin began to lose momentum as positive factors waned and negative factors from wars and monetary policies emerged. Even with the good news of the Spot Ethereum ETF approval, the price hasn't seen significant support. Meanwhile, only certain Altcoin categories, such as Memecoins, RWAs, and AI, continue to perform well.

In last week's Live session, Mr. Bit invited Mr. Peerapat Hankongkaew, Chief Investment Officer at Cryptomind Advisory Co., Ltd., also known as Mr. Harn from the Blockchain Review page, to discuss the outlook for the second half of 2024. What are the key areas of interest?

Interest Rates at 5%

Currently, we are facing interest rates at 5%, yet cryptocurrencies remain at very good prices compared to 2021 when interest rates were quite low. It's considered a strong position for cryptocurrencies to hold at these prices. Many are still hoping for a market surge. For the market to surge, interest rates need to decrease. The reason the market is in this state is the anticipation of falling interest rates. Financial costs are rising, and most analysts believed interest rates would start to decrease from Q4 2023 onwards, but this hasn't happened, leading the market to continue sideways.

Real-World Use of Cryptocurrency

We still see limited real-world application of cryptocurrency, as people view crypto purchases primarily as an investment similar to stocks, where stock prices rise due to anticipated future business performance. While cryptocurrency offers innovation and real utility, unlike the previous bull run, we haven't seen much practical innovation yet, and it's still relatively scarce compared to other markets.

Ethereum ETF

The Ethereum ETF has been approved, but why hasn't its price surged like Bitcoin's? The answer is that this approval is not yet for trading; it's merely a general approval. Trading approval is expected within three months. If we look at Bitcoin's price and the volume of Bitcoin flowing into Bitcoin Spot ETFs, we can estimate that Ethereum's price has a greater profit potential than Bitcoin within this year. However, if interest rates do not decrease, the cryptocurrency market trend will likely be an upward sideways movement, driven by positive factors such as elections and the launch of the Ethereum ETF.

Altcoin

Investing in Altcoins remains highly volatile, as other cryptocurrencies tend to experience drastic movements when Bitcoin's price fluctuates up or down, until interest rates decline. During this period, if you're looking to invest, the perspective is that Ethereum has a larger upside than Bitcoin, or you might consider investing in Bitcoin as it's a lower-risk option. Altcoins will be challenging to trade during this time, but for maximum safety, it might be best to wait until the situation resolves and becomes more stable.

SocialFi

Regarding SocialFi, considering the growth opportunities stemming from Web3, the outlook is positive, and competition is already increasing. It is believed that in the future, SocialFi will become a highly popular tool for promoting crypto projects. Lastly, for Real World Assets (RWA), we should monitor developments as regulatory oversight for crypto-backed real assets is expected to become clearer and their practical applications more diverse from now on.

Overall, in the second half of 2024, Bitcoin, the "big brother," might lead the smaller coins in the market to recover if interest rates are lowered.