Bitcoin (BTC) price predicitions for 2024

Bitcoin had a huge rally in 2023, with the digital currency up some 152% for the year.

And a number of commentators CNBC spoke to — both inside and outside of the cryptocurrency industry — expect the rise to continue.

After hitting a record high in 2021, bitcoin had a rough 2022, which was marked by the collapse of high-profile projects, liquidity issues and bankruptcies.

That year, FTX, once one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, filed for bankruptcy. In 2023, its founder Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty of all seven criminal counts brought against him by federal prosecutors in the U.S.

Also in 2023, Binance’s Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to criminal charges and stepped down as the company’s CEO as part of a $4.3 billion settlement with the Department of Justice.

Now that those two high-profile cases are out the way, many cryptocurrency executives see it as a chance to move forward and draw a line under the bad behavior of two of the industry’s poster children.

With fervor returning to the crypto markets, industry executives are calling the start of a new bull run, mainly predicated on two things — the bitcoin “halving” and the potential approval of a bitcoin exchange-traded fund in the U.S.

The halving, which happens every four years, is an event written in bitcoin’s code. The rewards so-called miners get for mining bitcoin is cut in half. This keeps a cap on supply of bitcoin, of which there will only ever be 21 million. In previous price cycles, halving preceded a rise in the price of bitcoin.

Meanwhile, there is growing excitement that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will approve the first ever bitcoin ETF, after years of opposition. This would mean investors can buy a product that tracks the price of bitcoin, without having to go on to an exchange and hold the digital currency directly. The industry is hoping this will draw in a wider range of investors, and in…