Bitcoin Price Pause Likely, But New July Highs Still Possible

Bitcoin could be in for a brief consolidation phase after its recent surge to new all-time highs — but another leg up before the end of July isn’t off the table, according to Galaxy Digital’s head of franchise trading, Michael Harvey.

“Consolidation around current prices is my base case given the large rally and new ATH,” Harvey told Cointelegraph.

Bitcoin will “trend higher” into the end of 2025

“I do expect BTC to trend higher into the year-end, but pausing here for air would be realistic,” Harvey said, adding:

“I think the best case BTC price into month end is a continued slow melt-up.”

He explained that reaching new highs by the end of this month is the best case scenario and would require ongoing strong inflows into the US-based spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETF), continued accumulation by Bitcoin treasury firms, and an aggressive increase in retail demand.

While spot Bitcoin ETFs have been posting strong inflows recently and demand from Bitcoin treasury firms keeps rising, there is still debate within the industry about whether retail demand has arrived yet. 

Coinbase recently jumped to No. 137 on the US Apple App Store, a hopeful sign that retail interest might be picking up. However, the low number of Google searches for “Bitcoin” suggests that broader retail demand hasn’t started.

Bitcoin reached a new all-time high of $122,884 on Monday, before retracing to $118,098 at the time of publication, according to Nansen data.

Bitcoin’s bear case is below $110,000

However, Harvey also outlined a worst-case scenario for Bitcoin in the near term, where the price could drop back below $110,000.

“Bear case is a risk-off move driven by profit taking and/or equity market weakness, which I believe could see BTC retrace 5-10%,” he said.

Related: Bitcoin’s lower support retests shift traders’ focus to XLM, LTC, ETC, BNB

Before Bitcoin broke its May all-time high of $112,000 on July 9, crypto analyst Rekt Capital warned that the current cycle may only have a few months of price expansion left, especially if it follows the same historical pattern from 2020.

Rekt explained that if the Bitcoin cycle follows the 2020 pattern, the market will likely peak in October, which is 550 days after the Bitcoin halving in April 2024.

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