If you are looking for an easy answer as to why it is difficult to predict bitcoin price, the simple answer is “it is difficult, because bitcoin is anonymous”. We will go back to that later. Let's first study when it is easy to predict bitcoin price in relation to “is it going to go up or down?”. For example, the news about China banning bitcoin and making all Chinese trading platforms sell their cryptocurrency before October 1 st made the price plunge to $3600. It is obvious that the supply/demand economic model is working, so bitcoin growth happening at the beginning of October was very obvious during that time. China made a mandatory dump and after that dump the price went back up. Lets use an example when it is obvious that bitcoin price is going to go down. Main reason for that is usually a new vulnerability or hack. MtGox bitcoin snatch made bitcoin price go down as well, because people lost a lot of their savings and were distrustful of this new investment method. So look out for new vulnerabilities, they can make the price plunge again. Rumors are that Russia is investing some calculating power to bring down bitcoin, but for now it is a rumor, nothing more. Why in most cases is it difficult to predict the price? The anonymity of bitcoin makes it equal to black market economics. The black market exists in the world and accounts for : weapons, narcotics, slavery, antiques, fraud money, stolen credit card information, bribery, money laundering and other “deep web” spheres of life. These markets now mostly use bitcoin to make deals. More and more black market participants chose bitcoin as their prime way to pay to one another. So how would you know where the ceiling of bitcoin price is? You cannot know for sure. In order to calculate, you would have to have at least a rough estimate of the market participants. This is why everyone makes very different speculations. The amount is limited, but how many people really want to have bitcoin and need it for their business affairs, investments, or day to day operations? Some critics say that the price will drop after the forking, some say bitcoin price will be as high as 25-75 thousand dollars per BTC. Unfortunately, until we have a rough estimate of the “dark markets”, there is no sure way to tell. Keep reading me, upvote, and if this post receives enough upvotes, I just might share with you my personal analysis of the bitcoin market ;)