2016
From the middle of September 2015 until May 2017, Bitcoin entered a long term trend that saw 689% gains in 88 weeks. This trend ended on May 8th when the price broke the upper resistance trend channel at $1615.
2017
From late May till late June Bitcoin's explosive jump out of the 2016 trend channel. The price then traced out the new upper resistance until the unsustainable enthusiasm allowed the back testing of the old trend channel and forming the new support for the 2017 trend channel on July 15th. From then November 26th Bitcoin gained 414% in 133 days.
2018 prediction
Assuming Bitcoin repeats the same behavior as it did in the beginning of 2017, we see that a potential upper line of resistance was formed on December 7th when Bitcoin failed to breach $20,000. If a new trend was to establish, it would have to bounce off the old upper line of the 2017 channel to create a new support. As luck would have it Bitcoin bounced right off the upper channel on December 22nd with a low $10,400. The price of Bitcoin at time of writing is $15,385, if Bitcoin can maintain this price consolidating sideways, it has until January 3rd to confirm the new trend channel and allow for more precise analysis for 2018 predictions.
Wild Speculation
If the current trend holds, Bitcoin will reach the psychologically significant price of $50,000 by February 10th and then the next significant price of $64,000 when Bitcoin hits a $1 trillion market cap. Since Bitcoin routinely has 30+% pullbacks we can attempt to profit off of these two price points.
Scenario 1
- Bitcoin blasts past $50,000 on it's first attempt and continues until nearing $64,000 at which point the price drops to between $45,000 to $50,000. $45,000 represents a 30% drop from $64,000.
Scenario 2
- The more likely and also more bullish scenario would be that Bitcoin would approach $50,000 but is unable to breach or maintain the price, it will then consolidate for the next push. The price will then rise 30% or greater than $50,000 ($72,000+) until a pullback where Bitcoin will back test $50,000 to form the new support.