Argentina's presidential election has resulted in the victory of Javier Milei, a Bitcoin advocate known for his critical stance on the country's central bank and inflation crisis. While Milei supports Bitcoin and views it as a way to return control of money to the private sector, he has not specified plans to make it legal tender. Milei's election and other positive factors have contributed to bullish sentiment in the cryptocurrency community, with analysts predicting Bitcoin's price could reach important levels between $39,000 and $50,000 in a "pre-halving rally." Meanwhile, Bitcoin network fees surged nearly 1,400% in November, driven by increased ordinal transactions.
Argentina's Presidential Election Victory Goes to Bitcoin Advocate Javier Milei
Argentina has chosen a new leader who has shown a strong affinity for Bitcoin (BTC) and a critical stance against the country’s central bank. Javier Milei emerged victorious in the country’s presidential election on Nov. 19, defeating his opponent Sergio Massa with 55% of the votes. Milei is set to take office on Dec. 10.
Many believe Milei’s election signals a shift in Argentina’s economic policies. The South American country has been grappling with an inflation crisis, with the Argentine peso witnessing a 140% increase in annual inflation over the past 12 months alone.
Milei has been pretty vocal about his dismay for Argentina’s central bank, even going so far as calling it a “scam” and a tool used by politicians to impose an “inflationary tax” on the public. He has referred to Bitcoin as a movement towards “the return of money to its original creator, the private sector.” However, Milei has not indicated any specific plans to make Bitcoin legal tender in the country. It will be very interesting to see what role cryptocurrency will play in the politician’s administration going forward.
In stark contrast, Sergia Massa has a very different plan for addressing Argentina’s economic troubles. Massa has previously pledged to launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC) if he gets elected, with the aim of finding a solution to the country’s inflation issue. Massa won the first round of Argentina’s presidential election in Oct. this year, but this was not enough for him to win the presidency outright.
BTC Entering Its Pre-Halving Target Zone
Bullish catalysts like Bitcoin friendly politicians advocating for cryptocurrency and the role it can play in economic restoration could be one of the many factors pushing BTC’s price up. In fact, according to Titan of Crypto, a well known cryptocurrency trader, BTC is on the verge of reaching a very important target zone between $39,000 and $50,000 in what he calls the “pre-halving rally”.
The $40,000 price level has proven to be a tough barrier to overcome in BTC’s attempts to climb higher. Despite several attempts in the past week, BTC has struggled to break through this resistance level. However, Titan of Crypto highlighted the importance of $39,000 as the potential bottom for BTC/USD before the 2024 halving. This suggests that the analyst believes BTC’s price may consolidate in this $39,000 to $50,000 range until the halving event.
Other people in the cryptocurrency community seem to agree with Titan of Crypto’s prediction. The co-founder of DecenTrader has also highlighted a price target of $46,000 for BTC before the halving.
BTC Price Performance
The market leader was changing hands at $37,211.08 at press time after it slipped 0.40% over the past 24 hours, according to data from TradingView. Despite this recent drop in price, BTC may still be perfectly positioned to attempt a challenge at the next major resistance level at $38,030 in the next 24-48 hours.
Daily chart for BTC/USDT (Source: TradingView)
Should BTC close a daily candle above this threshold, it may have the support needed to rise to as high as the $40K mark in the following couple of days. This bullish thesis could be invalidated if BTC breaks below the positive trend line that had formed on its daily chart throughout the past week. This could then expose BTC to the risk of testing the key support level at $36,300. Thereafter, continued sell pressure could force the cryptocurrency’s price to as low as $34,500 in the short term.
Bitcoin Network Fees Spike Almost 1,400% in November
During this past month, the Bitcoin network experienced a substantial surge in transaction fees, with data from CryptoFees.info indicating a huge increase of 1,391% from $779,549 at the beginning of the month to a peak of $11.63 million by Nov. 17. While the number has retracted slightly, it was hovering at around the $11.559 million mark yesterday.
This surge in transaction fees was mostly driven by a surge in ordinal transactions, especially those involving text embedded onto satoshis, which represent the smallest unit of Bitcoin. There have been an estimated 41,666,862 ordinal transactions to date. This shines light on the growing interest in using Bitcoin as more than just a transfer of value as users are actively exploring the potential of embedding information and messages within the blockchain itself.
This may be the last boost in revenue for miners before the upcoming halving that will take place next year. The 2023 halving event is estimated to occur in 151 days around April 19, 2024.
The next halving is set to reduce the rewards earned by Bitcoin miners by 50%. This event is programmed to occur every 210,000 blocks, roughly every four years. During the upcoming halving, the mining reward per block will decrease from 6.35 BTC to 3.175 BTC. This will also be the fourth time that mining rewards have been slashed by the network.
