If you’re anything like me, you’ve been calling $100k for the last 5 years or more and laughed out of the room; that’s been the default response from the nocoiners and fiat maxis.
You’re crazy; $ 100,000 for one coin of magic internet money? Don’t be daft!
Sure, it got 69% of the way there with the previous bull market blow-off top at $69 000, but that was built on leverage, rehypothecation and scam companies like FTX, and Bitcoin could never hit those heights, right?
Look, it lost more than half its value since then, only slowly recovering in 2024.
Ah, I’ve heard it all, and I’ve made peace with it.
Just like you can take a horse to the water and can’t make them drink, you can give a nocoiner 10,000 hours of knowledge, but you make them understand Bitcoin.
So all that’s left is to politely end the conversion, run the laser eyes on your profile picture and stack accordingly.
Fast-forward one halving later, and your outrageous claims seem closer to reality than ever before. November 2024 has been the month we rocketed into the $90k range, only 10k away from that prized round number: $100k USD.
While on the way, we smashed $100k in Dollars nobody really cares about, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand. Yeah, those were just appetisers, but we want the big boy, the US greenback, to fall to 1000 sats to a dollar.
If you’ve been watching the charts lately, waiting for this moment, you’ll likely notice that Bitcoin gets pretty performance-shy around that number, bumping its head closer and closer to that ceiling, but what gives?
You ran through 80 and 90 with ease; why does 100 seem so much harder?
Why Bitcoin Just Can’t Even With $100K?
Picture this: Bitcoin, the rebellious teenager of the financial world, is desperately trying to break through the $100,000 ceiling, while traders worldwide are collectively having what can only be described as the most expensive case of performance anxiety in history.
We’re moving into uncharted territory.
The Bitcoin price will be displayed with an extra digit, and while this sounds innocuous, six-figure Bitcoin in USD terms has some powerful psychological effects.
The Six-Figure Fear Factor
Remember when you were a kid, and counting to 100 seemed like reaching infinity?
That’s basically what’s happening with Bitcoin right now, except instead of proud parents watching you count, we have millions of traders obsessively refreshing their screens every 2.5 seconds.
The $100K milestone isn’t just a number – it’s the financial equivalent of your first high school dance, where everyone’s too nervous to make the first move.
Bro, what if I get rejected?
You don’t want to be the first to be playing in this new range for Bitcoin; you’d rather let another sucker walk through the door and catch that haymaker and bloody nose.
The FOMO-Induced Paralysis
There’s something hilariously human about our relationship with round numbers. We’ll casually watch Bitcoin bounce between $97,432 and $98,765, but the moment it flirts with $99,999, suddenly, everyone turns into a deer in headlights.
It’s as if adding that extra digit breaks some unwritten law of the universe, like putting pineapple on pizza or wearing socks with sandals.
The resistance at $100K is less about technical analysis and more about traders collectively playing the world’s most expensive game of “not it.”
Nobody wants to be the first one to buy at $100K, fearing they’ll be remembered as the person who bought at the top – the Bitcoin equivalent of buying a Beanie Baby collection in 1999.
What if $100k is where the party ends, and you’re stuck holding the bag as we drop like a rock down 50%? While highly unlikely, it’s still possible, and when you haven’t built any conviction or track record with the asset, you’ve always had this what-if pestering the back of your mind.
The Psychology of Six Figures
What makes $100,000 such a mental Mount Everest? It’s partly because our brains are hardwired to think in neat, round numbers.
We’re basically a species of accountants who got lazy and decided that powers of 10 were significant just because we have ten fingers and ten toes; at least, most of us do.
Shout out to all the 9-finger Bitcoiners!
If humans had evolved with 12 fingers, we’d probably be stressing about Bitcoin hitting $144,000 instead.
The $100K barrier also represents something deeper: Validation.
For early Bitcoin believers, it’s like watching your weird hobby suddenly become cool.
Remember that guy who bought two pizzas for 10,000 BTC in 2010?
At $100K per Bitcoin, those would be the $1 billion pizzas. That’s not just expensive takeout; that’s enough to make even a Medici blush.
The Great Wall of Sell Orders
Trading platforms at the $100K mark look like a game of Tetris gone wrong, with sell limit orders stacked higher than a Jenga tower at a kindergarten party.
It’s as if every trader simultaneously decided to set their “I can finally retire” price at exactly $100,000, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of resistance.
What’s particularly amusing is watching the psychological warfare play out.
Traders set their sell orders at $99,999, thinking they’re absolutely brilliant for being “ahead of the crowd.”
Meanwhile, others set theirs at $99,998, thinking they’re even smarter. This continues until someone eventually lists at $95,000, probably the same type of person who starts Christmas shopping in July.
The HODLer’s Dilemma
Long-term holders (or HODLers, for those fluent in crypto-speak) face their own comedic crisis. These are the folks who’ve been preaching “digital gold” since Bitcoin was worth less than a cup of coffee.
Now that their prophecies are near fulfilment, they’re frozen in a paradox:
Sell at $100K and risk missing out on the mythical $1 million Bitcoin, or hold and watch it potentially drop faster than a failed soufflé
Bitcoin’s rising price allows you to access some lifestyle chips that can make your life easier; maybe that’s finally buying a home as a Millennial or Gen Z, maybe that’s paying off debt as a Gen Z or Alpha, or maybe you need to extend your retirement runway as a retiring Gen X’er or Boomer.
The Media Circus
And let’s not forget the media’s role in this psychological circus. Every time Bitcoin approaches $100K, headlines appear faster than mushrooms after rain.
“Bitcoin Approaches Historic $100K!” they’ll scream, usually followed by an immediate dip and the equally dramatic “Bitcoin Crashes 3% in Devastating Pullback!”
The crypto market is basically a soap opera with financial consequences.
The Inevitable Break
Eventually, Bitcoin will break $100K, probably when everyone least expects it – perhaps while traders are distracted by a particularly compelling cat video or during that brief moment when they’ve finally stopped checking their phones every five minutes.
The real irony?
Once it breaks $100K, we’ll probably go through this entire psychological drama again at $200k, $500k and, of course, the big $1 million when we achieve Sat to US Dollar cent parity. Because if there’s one thing more predictable than market cycles, it’s human nature and our peculiar obsession with round numbers.
Until then, we’ll continue watching this financial theatre play out, where millions of traders worldwide participate in what essentially amounts to the world’s most expensive game of chicken.
May the odds be ever in your favour, and remember: it’s only money… fiat money… that somehow became worth less and less each cycle, so don’t pay too much attention to this broken measuring stick of value.
