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Otherwise, $100K-150K for no blow-off top, simply reaching the logarithmic growth upper band and reversing.
I don't really have any major problem with this kind of scenario ending up playing out because it is still very profitable for me, personally.
For most hodlers I imagine. Better than losing 50%+ of fiat value at least
One of my problems with the considering of such scenario to be reasonable remains that it just does not seem to reflect bitcoin's history very well, and it does not even seem to fit very well into a kind of "smoothing of tops" kind of depiction of bitcoin as a maturing asset class... and maybe that ends up being part of the rub (the crux of it) that I have with these kinds of smoothing top depictions of bitcoin in that there seems to be some kind of built presumption that bitcoin is sufficiently maturing as an asset class in order to really meaningfully be considered in that kind of a way.. which I really have some difficulties accepting that as a very likely scenario
Personally I find it fits perfectly into the smoothing of tops adoption/maturation theory, based on Bitcoin's price history. That of declining highs based on % gain, increased volume, declining volatility, increased adoption, etc. I just stick to the current growth curve, no need to over-complicate things imo with any theoretical supply shock models or otherwise.
Therefore for Q1 high would be around $150K, Q2 $175K or Q3 $200K. I'm never a fan of the "this year will be different theory", when for the past 10 years Bitcoin has formed and remained within a pretty clear-cut logarithmic adoption curve, until there's any evidence to suggest breaking a decade long trend. Depending on how you look at it, from peak to peak the growth declined considerably from ~35,000% to around 1,500%, so the % rise declined enoromously by 95%. So for example another decline of even just 50% would
only be a rise of around 750%, which would put a top around the $175K mark.
For sure we could see a wick above or below this curve, like in March 2020 when price went 50% below the lower band, but it would take a black-swan event for that to happen imo, as opposed to the usual up-trend that occurs. So I do see the argument and possibility for reaching some $250K level or higher, but it wouldn't be typical of Bitcoin's price movements based on it's entire history.
Otherwise the target of $1 million sometime after Q3 2026 I find pretty realistic, as well the completion of adoption by 2030 at a $5 million BTC (where the upper and lower bands of the adoption curve cross over, and therefore the model becomes invalidated by default). With a $100 trillion market cap, it'd also be hard to argue that a $5 million Bitcoin price wouldn't make most fiat currencies redundant by then. 9 years from now also seems like a realistic time-frame personally, given how far Bitcoin has come in the past 10 years. This growth is also very similar to S2F, just with a little less pseudo-science
It's not that it's my favourite scenario, but simply the most likely now there has been a clear enough trend of lows and highs established over 3 peaks and 3 lows. It's true I wouldn't be a fan of Bitcoin abandoning an adoption curve and forming a speculative marco-bubble (that so far hasn't happened fortunately), which only pops and leads to eventually returning to the adoption curve, taking maybe a decade or so to consolidate, even if entirely possible. As leaving this adoption curve to the upside would certainly open the doors to leaving it to the downside too.... meaning 10 years of adoption down the drain.
I realise the adoption curve might seem "whimpy" to you, because ultimately is typified by
continuing to produce declining % gains, but personally I think a 750% rise from peak to peak is more than satisfactory, as well as a 20x within around 5 years, or even 100x within 10 years. I also think sustainable adoption will win the race faster than a speculative bubble that would likely take many years to recover from, not just the usual mini-boom and mini-bust that are nothing more than Bitcoin's bull markets and bear markets on smaller scales. The Tortoise and the Hare comes to mind here, that of slow and steady wins the race.