The official start of the Bitcoin bull market has been determined to be March 1, as stated by PlanB, a pseudonymous quantitative analyst and creator of the controversial stock-to-flow (S2F) model for Bitcoin’s price.
According to PlanB’s recent post, the accumulation phase for Bitcoin has ended, along with the easy opportunities to buy Bitcoin, as indicated by the S2F chart.
This prediction comes just two days after Bitcoin surpassed the $60,000 mark for the first time in over two years. At 3:00 pm Central European Time, Bitcoin experienced a 0.75% decrease and was traded at $62,472.
While the S2F model gained popularity during the bull run of 2021, it is not considered a perfect Bitcoin price oracle. The chart suggests that Bitcoin should have reached $100,000 in early August 2021, when it was trading at around $44,000. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has criticized the S2F model for providing investors with a “false sense of certainty.”
PlanB’s predictions align with the expectations of other analysts. According to Vetle Lunde, a senior analyst at K33 Research, Bitcoin typically consolidates immediately after the halving but experiences a rally in the following months. Lunde stated in an interview with Cointelegraph:
“In addition to the highly anticipated halving, the recent approval of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has also contributed to the increasing investor interest in Bitcoin and its subsequent price appreciation.”
Following the conversion of Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust ETF, which resulted in the dumping of $598.9 million worth of BTC on February 29, Bitcoin experienced a 3% correction. However, according to CoinMarketCap data, the price of Bitcoin has increased by over 22% in the past week.
Excluding Grayscale’s ETF, the nine new spot Bitcoin ETFs achieved a combined daily volume of over $2 billion for the second consecutive day on February 28. According to a report by CryptoQuant, these new ETFs accounted for 75% of new Bitcoin investments since their launch on January 11.
The introduction of these ETFs has brought passive, price-agnostic demand to Bitcoin for the first time in its history. A research report by Bitfinex Analysts, shared with Cointelegraph, suggests that this will lead to new all-time highs before the end of 2024.
In related news, the US government moved $922 million of seized Bitcoin after the BTC price exceeded $60,000.