2022 was a challenging year for all cryptocurrencies. It has been obvious to anyone keeping an eye on the market that the last few months have been far from what cryptocurrency holders hoped. The sector faced a $2 trillion worth of loss in total market cap, and Bitcoin’s value plunged from its all time high of $69,000 to around $16,000 in November 2022. 

Bitcoin is the biggest digital currency by market cap, and when its value went down, it triggered a domino effect in the market. Some investors have started to invest in alternative coins like Calvaria, Ethereum, Dash 2Trade, and other similar ones to limit the risk because they had a great performance and major exchanges supported them. 

However, even if Bitcoin’s value decreased, it continued to be traders’ first choice when entering the crypto market because it’s the oldest value and has a history of delivering wealth. Bitcoin is basically what started the crypto market, and even in the bear market, it still provides big returns. 

This article talks about bitcoin price today, predictions, and whether experts believe it might bounce back. 

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What will 2023 bring for Bitcoin?
If you check price charts, you notice that Bitcoin was traded at over $50,000 at the end of 2021, but its price started to drop starting in January 2022. Its price fluctuated between $30,000 and $40,000 for a couple of months, and then in May 2022, it plummeted to under $30,000. It took less than a month for its value to get to under $20,000, where it stayed during the 2022 summer. Then in November 2022, its price plunged to $15,000. Everyone trading in the crypto market started to worry that the coin would only plummet lower from then on. 

Even if crypto experts agree that the weakness of the crypto market will continue into 2023, Bitcoin will recover some of its value. Amid the chaos the FTX collapse triggered, Bitcoin regained some of its value in the early days of 2023. Crypto enthusiasts believe that digital currencies, and especially Bitcoin are here to stay, and investors can use them to diversify their portfolios. 

The bitcoin community is divided about whether its value will go up or down in the following months. Some technical indicators and analysts suggest that the coin’s price will remain stable in the spring. Correlating them with stock prices, the volatile macroeconomic environment, and inflation, some conclude that the recession could last until 2024. A number of Bitcoin enthusiasts state that the price could reach unprecedented highs. There is evidence to support both instances. 

What makes experts believe that Bitcoin’s price might increase in 2023?
Trends show that Bitcoin bull runs coincide with the 4-year market cycle (buying, uptrend, selling, downtrend. Crypto experts state that the accumulation or buying stage will begin in 2023 and continue until late 2024. Some evidence supports the idea that the average 80-week bear market ends in April 2023, and Bitcoin’s valuation will spike in mid-2023. 

Bitcoin has a deflationary nature, with halving events that cause the price to increase over time. Each halving event cuts the amount of the reward miners get for confirming blocks. The next halving happens in April 2024, so even if the market might witness some turbulence at the moment, its deflationary nature will trigger price appreciation in the long run. 
However, those planning to add Bitcoin to their portfolios should be wary of the hype because this period will bring several greed sells. Crypto experts watch with skepticism the prediction that Ethereum will register a rise of 10 times in its value. 

Why is Bitcoin the biggest cryptocurrency by market cap?
Similarly to other digital currencies, Bitcoin derives its value similarly by fulfilling a series of characteristics of assets. These features are: acceptability, scarcity, durability, divisibility, fungibility, and portability. 

Crypto experts have often said that Bitcoin is superior to the other digital currencies in the market because it cannot be copied. Yes, everyone can see and use the code in the blockchain, but the network’s properties are beyond programming. The first cryptocurrency has proven itself to resist censorship and withstand the test of time. 

Bitcoin is still considered a novel technology, and many people have to figure out how it works before investing in it. But in order to understand why it’s the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, people must understand why they value money. Is it a collective agreement, or does it meet some necessary qualities?

Bitcoin is the perfect springboard for answering this question. People accept that a euro, dollar, or pound are valuable because they have been in their lives since they were born. But if they take a step back and try to find out what brings these currencies value, they conclude that the same characteristics make some more valuable than others. At the moment, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies aren’t widely accepted as fiat money, but again, they haven’t been around for as long as traditional currencies. Once people become more familiar with digital currencies, they might understand they’re superior assets. 

Bitcoin could be the best digital asset ever created:
- Acceptability. We cannot say for sure how many Bitcoin holders are, but statistics reveal that over 114 million individuals have Bitcoin. And the number will grow as knowledge of its utility spreads, and the cryptocurrency becomes easier to store, spend, and buy. 

- Durability. No one can destroy Bitcoin because as long as the blockchain exists on computers, Bitcoin also exists. Since its launch, the network’s uptime has been almost flawless and it didn’t have an outage. 
- Scarcity. Satoshi Nakamoto designed the currency to be only 21 million tokens. Everyone can confirm the limit by verifying the protocol’s code. 
- Portability. Bitcoin users can send tokens anywhere in the world as long as they have an internet connection. 
- Fungibility. All Bitcoins are the same and have identical values. Also, counterfeiting is impossible in the blockchain. 
- Divisibility. A single Bitcoin contains 100 million smaller units called satoshis. 

Final words
After some turbulent months, there are mixed opinions about the evolution of Bitcoin, but as this article shows, the first digital currency is here to stay.