Is Bitcoin Staging a Comeback With $9,000?

Watching bitcoin prices lately has been perhaps the whitest of white-knuckled rides. If Cedar Point were ever craving a new ride blueprint, it could make the Fall of Bitcoin into the biggest thrill ride ever. After all, just this weekend, it went from highs above $9,000 on Saturday—$9,070.64—to back under $8,000 for a bit on Sunday before settling in at $8,611.91 as of this writing. Some suggest that the free-fall may be over, and there’s some unusual bits of news to support this.

A recent look at the fundamentals drives home the point that bitcoin’s collapse may have reached an end, with a possible turnaround in sight. With prices recently dropping below $6,000, but recovering to the $8,000 - $9,000 level, it’s not out of line to suggest that the bottom may have been found.

The long and the short of the fundamentals suggests that bitcoin could make a play for a five-figure recovery once more, but with an overall bearish outlook from weekly charts, may make $10,000 a tough point to break for long. Some, however, project a wider overall drop to $5,000, especially if there are regular closes below the February 9 low of $7,724.90.

There’s one point less than considered by the fundamentals: demand. Recently, several Russian scientists at a top-secret facility related to nuclear warheads were dismissed for using the facility’s supercomputer to mine bitcoin. A report from the Irish Times notes that the “energy footprint of bitcoin” is actually beginning to surpass energy demand for the entire country. Word from Fox Business suggested that a similar state is emerging in Iceland, as the country expends more energy mining bitcoin than is normally spent powering the country’s homes.

As the total available number of bitcoin left to be mined falls, the difficulty of mining said bitcoin only increases. Just a few years ago, a reasonably-powerful gaming PC could be used to mine bitcoin. Now, it’s the province of high-end specialist hardware. With bitcoin likely to be tough to come by going forward, this may well raise the price back up. As is always the case, however, this is speculative at best. However, bitcoin’s days of free-fall may be coming to an end.