I don't believe it's possible to predict the price movement with such accuracy. The price can be somewhat up or somewhat down, it doesn't matter. What matters is the long-term trend, and whether we'll see Bitcoin recovering to its previous ATH point over the months after halving. I think that we will, but perhaps I'm wrong and 2024 will be just another year of pretty slow upward trend (like 2023).
Halving certainly doesn't discourage people from investing in Bitcoin. It's a time when Bitcoin gets a lot of attention, and attention can translate into a higher demand. Then there are also people who believe that Bitcoin is bound to rise because mining must remain profitable (I don't think that's how it works), which also brings additional interest in Bitcoin around that time.

Investing is alright, but I don't think it should be done at expense of essential things that provide a fairly comfortable and fairly healthy life. Human life isn't very long, and it's quite unpredictable, so you never know how much you have left of it. That's why I think it's important to enjoy it when we can, and to avoid suffering for allegedly better times in the future (because that future might never come). Accumulating Bitcoin without a goal of spending it at some point, and doing that while harshly restricting oneself doesn't feel right.

Having some savings is helpful, and you need to save money to have savings. It's not just useful in case of an emergency, but also empowering if you want to travel somewhere (and you can't afford it by just taking some money out of your monthly budget because it costs as much as your monthly budget, for example), or to make a big purchase that will make you/someone close to you feel happier.
In my country, nobody pays taxes for cars they own or money they just have as savings on their accounts... So the whole argument doesn't apply here, even though maybe it makes sense in other countries. I do agree about the part with Bitcoin as a form of savings, but I suppose that also depends on taxation of cryptos in different countries.

Trump can be against CBDCs, but he isn't pro-Bitcoin, and he is very pro-USD. What he's saying about a CBDC is something that should appeal to his supporters and seems to align with the value of freedom (viewed as a limitation of the authorities overseeing things), which is something Republicans heavily rely on. But the USD is also fully under the control of authorities, so being against CBDC which being so pro-fiat is a manipulative and incoherent position. I'm happy to see that many people around here can look beyond what he's saying and focus on the reason he's saying that.

That's huge news, primarily because of how fast that happened and how far Bitcoin has come. Being #2 is a very decent achievement. The way the ranking is made isn't simple to follow, though. I couldn't find a nice table where Bitcoin ETF would be #2, for example. There are many gold ETFs, and there are several Bitcoin ETFs, so it's not like Bitcoin only needs to beat one of them.
Interestingly, the course is a tweet by CC15Capital which is now unavailable, so the trustworthiness of this information can be dubious.

In my country, there's no housing crisis because the population has been decreasing for a few decades, so expecting even a house or a flat to rise in price (above inflation rate) isn't very realistic, let alone just a piece of land that doesn't have anything on it. Okay, looking at some data, it does seem that there's some growth in price (10% over a year, it seems), but the land market is very new in my country (it has existed for less than 2 years), and there's no completely reliable and trustworthy data.
Another thing is that my country's at war with another country, so the land you buy might get occupied by a foreign power or might be destroyed by military equipment and weapons. That also makes Bitcoin a lot more attractive, as it is digital.

It's not like Bitcoin has been doing great as a currency, and now, suddenly, the ETFs are killing the vibe. It's quite clear from this forum that people largely view Bitcoin as an investment, as something to hodl, not actively spend. The ETFs just provide a more traditional and more centralized way of doing that. Those who care about Bitcoin's decentralization will keep their coins and will keep using non-custodial wallets. But traditional investors can be drawn to Bitcoin ETFs, and this can basically create some new demand.
Ultimately, I think it's a good thing because it helps Bitcoin's reputation, making it look more legitimate. I don't think institutional investors will be able to take Bitcoin under their control this way.

In my country, the situation is not exactly the same as described by the op because I come from Ukraine, which used to be in the Soviet Union. So boomers could buy cars and houses, but they did get flats from the state for their work and things like that, and buying our own flat is next to impossible for the younger generations. There are more job opportunities, more ways of doing interesting challenging stuff and getting paid for it, but making savings is very hard, and earning enough to purchase your own accommodation is next to impossible. I do hope that things will get better, but so far, it's not easy.

The way I see it, Bitcoin moves in a certain way, making three steps forward and two steps back. It reaches a certain price, then loses more than a half of it, but then gradually builds up toward a full recovery and even toward surpassing the previous ATH. What's important is that it always recovers and always move forward, which means that a bear market is not the end and doesn't have to result in a loss of money. It can be reasonably argued that there may come a point of no return, something from which Bitcoin never recovers. But the more times Bitcoin recovers, the stronger the trust in this tendency becomes, making it a safer asset.

I don't have regrets in life, and that includes Bitcoin. I just find it unhelpful to dwell on the past. What matters is which lessons we learn from it, and how we act later on. I usually sell Bitcoin when I need the money, and looking back, I realize that not selling would have been very difficult. I strive to save up Bitcoin, but often struggle with it. However, I don't focus on the negative sides, on the lost opportunities, etc. I just try to do better, and hodl when it's possible for me to do that without it having a negative impact on my life.

From the interview, it seems to me that Bitcoin is of an interest to Rami as a tech entrepreneur and as a musician. As an entrepreneur, he gets involved in startups, he's interested in investments. But there's also a side of it that is specific to punk rock, namely that Bitcoin as a form of opposition to the traditional economic establishment, something smaller, more decentralized, and very different from typical assets or currencies. The similarity is also in energy, as Rami points out: the drive to create something important that would question the world order. This attitude seems fitting to me, although Bitcoin can, of course, be viewed from very different perspectives.

It's very unfortunate when people get scammed, so I'm sorry for the op's friend. But, in my opinion, it's not an issue that is specific to Bitcoin. There are plenty of scams, related to various crypto projects, fiat projects, other things like jewellery, etc. The problems are usually due to the lack of financial education, the lack of understanding of how scams work, what sort of strategies they usually employ, which feelings they exploit. Quick profits are the basis of many scams, not just those related to Bitcoin. So people should just be more mindful and careful in general, remembering that if something sounds too good to be true, it's probably a scam, and that there are no risk-free investments.

Well, more than 3 years later, we can analyse the op's wild allegation. The USA is still number one economically and politically, although it's losing some ground politically, I believe, as we're moving towards a multipolar world. Economically, China is still #2, and still has a pretty long way to go to beat the US, not to mention that there seem to be some economic struggles that are just starting for China. France is a little over 10% of what the US has, so it's just ridiculous to say that it can beat the US economically. Russia and France are in pretty bad relations, probably the worst over a long time, because of the full-scale invasion of Russia into Ukraine.

Honestly, promoting gender stereotypes for no reason isn't something I endorse. Tons of women don't care and no longer wear high heels, and wouldn't want to spend so much money on something as meaningless as a clothes item. Of course, many males also don't care neither about watches nor about cryptos and hoarding cryptos. Girls aren't stupid and focused on shoes, boys aren't investment geniuses.
Making more generic examples and saying that it's just 'person A' and 'person B' would argue for the same point of accumulating cryptos, without stereotypical harmful gender roles.

While I don't trust those very rich profit-oriented guys, it is inspiring to see people change their mind, especially when they are pretty old and have done well with their former priorities and beliefs. The CEO of BlackRock made a good financial decision that will bring profit to the company. It's probably based on the interests of their customers and on Bitcoin's really great performance in the long run.
Clearly, BlackRock isn't the only one, as several funds got their ETFs granted. But some people are just unwilling to change with the times, especially if they view Bitcoin as a threat to their businesses.

I think that Bitcoin is about financial freedom, and financial freedom, like any other freedom, is about having a choice. Bitcoin gives us a choice, a way of being our own banks, of using a currency that nobody is issuing and controlling in a centralized way. But freedom means that people can also choose other things, they aren't forced to be pro-decentralization, pro-privacy, etc. Bitcoin ETFs, just like centralized exchanges and custodial wallets, will find their customers. It's just an option that will become available to some people. While Bitcoin, in its pure form, remains an option, I don't have a problem with people having other, more centralized options.

People have already pointed on the mistakes in the post regarding the past and the prices, so I'll focus on the main question about 2024. It seems to me that, over the last year, Bitcoin has been gradually growing in value, and this trend continues so far in 2024. Of course, there are some corrections along the way, but then recovery happens pretty fast, and Bitcoin continues building up value. I expect 2024 to be a good year, a year during which this build-up continues, up to a new ATH being reached in Q4 2024 or so. There can always be unfortunate surprises like major negative regulation decisions, crashes of major crypto businesses, etc., so things can still go South. But that would just postpone the inevitable by a few months, so to speak.

It seems that the op is suggesting financial self-accountability because a person is making an assessment of oneself here. But when I google financial accountability, it is, of course, about being accountable to others when performing financial tasks.
The op mentions potential benefits and a few tips, but no details on how it could look like. Is being aware of how much you earn, how much you spend, and what were your biggest purchases on a monthly basis enough to say that a person is financially accountable? Does financial accountability require setting and achieving goals, or can it be just about analysing spendings?

I had Economics at school, but it wasn't very practical. We just needed to create our own business plans, account for various spendings, project some revenue, etc. While it's not that bad, I think basic understanding of daily, monthly, annual financial management based on the main expenses and sources of income would be more useful because not everyone will write a business plan, but the majority will need to manage their individual income. In my country, high school students actually do have a subject called 'financial literacy', but it seems that what they're actually doing is still that same thing with business plans that I did when I was in high school.

The op's saying that the price of Bitcoin is at its lowest in the months leading up to halving, but then shares a chart that doesn't support that claim, the way I see it. The months before the first halving enjoyed a fairly high price, higher than a year before halving, for instance. Then at the second halving, the price in the months leading to it was also decent and higher than a year ago. Then the same pattern is visible, with the next halving and the price being at its lowest more than a year before the halving event.
So months before halving might be a good time to buy, assuming that the price will never return to the same price point (which does seem to be supported by the chart, more or less), but it's not the best time in general.