August 2023 left Bitcoin at a delicate crossroad.
Bitcoin had been consolidating around the $29,000 zone since late June, ranging between $29,800 and $31,500.
Finally, some time around mid-August, the bulls lost the battle, letting the bears push Bitcoin's price to the $25,000 zone.
However, as we usher September in, we would all like to know:
What does the new month have in store for the flagship cryptocurrency?
In this article, we will go over five major factors that will determine the price direction of Bitcoin as September runs its course, and the year comes to an end.
Without further ado, here is the first:
After Grayscale recently defeated the SEC in court, Bloomberg ETF experts have increased their predictions of the likelihood that a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) will be approved by the end of 2023 (possibly September).
According to a post by Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas on X (Twitter) on August 30, the possibilities have increased from 65% to 75%.
In recent developments, however, according to Tom Lee, the head of research at FS Insight, Bitcoin is about to do much better.
In this video/tweet from Altcoin Daily, Lee mentions that if ETFs are approved, the daily demand for Bitcoin will outweigh its daily supply, raising the price.
At the end of the day, Tom Lee says that Bitcoin will be worth "over $150,000", and could even go as high as $185,000.
According to Coinglass, Bitcoin's 30-day change is about -7.2%.
As illustrated above, Bitcoin's performance for August is the worst it has been this year.
And if you compare that with all the Augusts since the last Bitcoin halving, the only August worse than this, is last year's.
But wait, there's more.
Augusts have been bad. However, Septembers have been terrible when it comes to Bitcoin's price.
Check out the illustration below.
Septembers have proven to be wildly terrible months in a row, since 2017 and even further.
There have even been questions on Twitter, as to how possible a Bitcoin crash to $22,000 or lower is.
A good example is from analyst, Rekt Capital.
In a recent tweet, the analyst drew attention to August's performance and mentioned that a dip in September may indeed be possible.
This is another issue you should be aware of as September gets ushered in.
Bitcoin used to be highly volatile when reacting to things like rate hikes, non-farm payrolls and unemployment data.
However, as of the last few weeks, the cryptocurrency's price action seems to have gone deaf and is reacting less and less to these data.
How is this bad?
Bitcoin needs some (bullish) volatility, now more than ever. This would be a good thing, because September is expected to be "action-packed", according to this tweet from The Kobeissi Letter.
This week alone, Bitcoin is expecting several macroeconomic reports that normally would jolt its price action back to life.
However, time will tell whether or not Bitcoin continues to stay deaf in September.
Hashrate in PoW blockchains like Bitcoin is a measure of how much power mining operations consume.
And according to James V. Straten from CryptoSlate, Bitcoin's hashrate is starting to break through the roof.
Straten implied that this might lead up to a "miner bull run", due to the energy issues in Texas, and the general cost of electricity worldwide.
Think of it like this:
If miners have to spend more on electricity to mine Bitcoin, it means that they will price the coins they get as block rewards higher, ushering in a massive price increase in Bitcoin.
The PCE data for August is due to be released on Thursday, 31 August.
According to a tweet from Material Indicators, the market usually expects volatility on days with incoming economic reports.
The tweet mentions that when this volatility happens BEFORE the news is released, it is usually a trap, and means that unsuspecting investors may rush in and get "REKT".
The Material Indicators account shared Binance's order book, showing that such a move is happening.
This means that the whales may have no intentions of pumping money into Bitcoin, and may only be doing this to harvest liquidity from unsuspecting investors.
As illustrated in the chart below, the price of Bitcoin surged on Wednesday, 29 August, a day before the PCE data release.
Just like Material Indicators said in their tweet, this would not be a problem if Bitcoin had enough liquidity to dampen volatility.
However, Bitcoin simply doesn't and we may be in a "buy the rumour, sell the news scenario"
Bitcoin, as we can see, is starting to decline from this zone after meeting resistance at its 200-day MA (red line).
The RSI signal line has moved to the neutral zone, indicating equilibrium among the bulls and bears.
However, the RSI-MA is still in the oversold zone, indicating that Bitcoin may still be in a delicate position, and may pull a surprise move at any time.
Disclaimer: Voice of Crypto aims to deliver accurate and up-to-date information, but it will not be responsible for any missing facts or inaccurate information. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile financial assets, so research and make your own financial decisions.