For most of 2024, the value of Bitcoin, converting from BTC to USD as seen on Binance for example, has been hovering around $50k. While cryptocurrency can be a very complicated market sector, there’s no denying that the price has been increasing over the past few years, and it’s likely that it will continue to do so.

Therefore, the question is simple: how quickly will Bitcoin increase in value? More specifically for investors in Bitcoin, can Bitcoin break $75k by the end of 2024? Well, let’s talk about that – it’s a complicated question with quite a complicated answer.

How is Bitcoin’s value determined?

The main way that Bitcoin’s value can be figured out is the same as pretty much everything else that’s commonly traded: supply and demand. The reason that Bitcoin has value is twofold: its utility, and its weight.

Utility

The utility of a currency is a pretty obvious thing to conceive of. If an item can be stored, traded, and saved like a currency, then it is a currency. This is the case with Bitcoin – Bitcoin transactions occur every day, and plenty of Bitcoin users are saving their coins for a while, speculating on a future price rise.

This utility is also a bit different from more common currencies – Bitcoin has a restricted supply, meaning that as the demand for it continues to get higher, the value will artificially increase at a greater rate. This is different from, for instance, US dollars. If the US treasury really needs to, it can simply print more money, and lower the value of the dollar.

Weight

The weight of Bitcoin is the main factor that investors bear in mind when purchasing Bitcoin in 2024. While there have been temporary ups and downs in the value of Bitcoin, the general trend has been an increasing one from the invention of Bitcoin to now.

This steady growth is valuable when people make money buying and selling different items, especially as the growth is proven by further growth. This increasing weight of evidence is a large factor in the value of Bitcoin.

What causes the Bitcoin value to increase or decrease?

As with every commodity, the objective value of Bitcoin changes every single second. While the general trend has been that the value of Bitcoin increases with time, it does fluctuate up and down from time to time.

There are a number of different factors that drive these price increases or decreases, so let’s talk about some common ones here.

Regulation

As cryptocurrency is a relatively new commodity, it’s taking the financial world a while to catch up. This means that a number of regulatory bodies have found themselves suddenly faced with issues of fraud, profiteering, and more in the sphere of something they’ve never heard of.

In turn, this has led to brand new regulations being generated across the world to ensure that the trading of Bitcoin is equally as regulated as the trading of any other currency. Depending upon the exact wording and nature of these pieces of legislation, the value of Bitcoin can increase or decrease.

For instance, if a law were passed to make Bitcoin legal tender in a certain country, you might expect to see a price rise. The reason for this is that the use case of Bitcoin has suddenly increased, making it more valuable to a greater number of people.

Fear

A lot of decisions are made with fear in mind, and that’s entirely understandable in our complex world. In terms of global economics, this fear is often driven by uncertainty.

This has been seen many times over, but notably around the time of the UK’s Brexit vote. Because a great number of bodies were suddenly uncertain about how their business would function in the UK, the value of the British pound dropped.

This fear applies to many different things throughout the financial world, and should always be considered when forecasting data.

Demand

Because the supply of Bitcoin is limited by the rate at which it can be produced, the demand has a disproportionate amount of sway over the value of Bitcoin.

Many factors may increase or decrease the demand for Bitcoin, and all of them will have a direct impact on the value itself. For instance, to revisit the example used above: if Bitcoin were made legal tender in a certain country, particularly one in which a lot of business takes place, the demand would immediately increase, as would the value.