Thought Experiment: Bitcoin falls to $1000. I think it would recover.

[d5000]

[Trigger warning / Disclaimer] This is only a speculative horror fairytaile  It's not something I consider likely (not completely impossible, but less than 1% likelihood).

In another thread I got the following shower thought:

What, if purely by forces of speculation and panic selling, but without a fundamental reason like a bug or quantum computing, Bitcoin takes a massive dip which erases more than 95% of its value, letting it fall as low as $1000 or so?

Would Bitcoin recover?

There are many potential reasons for such a fall to be at least hypothetically possible:

- Strategy (Saylor) goes bankrupt and has to sell all coins, creating extreme panic.
- The US Strategic Bitcoin reserve is removed and sold.
- Tether goes bankrupt.
- Blackrock removes its Bitcoin ETF.
- Satoshi's coins are sold (not by quantum hackers, but by Satoshi himself).
- Massive chain reaction and panic after a stock market crash like in 2008.

My own crystal ball says that it the price is likely to recover in the mid to long term, even possibly in the short term, for two reasons:

1) Many people will take this as a massive opportunity. Many of those that missed the train before 2017 would be happy to enter the market for such a low price. Because even a recovery to $10,000 would mean massive profits.
2) It's possible that many early cypherpunks and idealist Bitcoiners could return if "the Wall Street bros" are out, e.g. if Saylor, the ETFs and the US government exit the market. This could even be the base for a more healthy growth as currency and storage of value.

Why? Because Bitcoin's value proposition of the most secure and active decentralized payment network has not changed.

This is of course possible if and only if:

- There is no other decentralized cryptocurrency which took Bitcoin's place and its competition was the main reason for the crash.
- There is no other fundamental reason like a successful 51% attack. (Bankruptcies aren't really "fundamental" for Bitcoin).
- There are no major bans or extremely harsh regulations.
- Money is still relevant, we haven't advanced to post-scarcity or so

Share your opinion

[GreatArkansas]

Without a fundamental reason? This is impossible.

But for example, if it happens, that will be the first time Bitcoin will happen, that dump is too much that will reach that percentage.
Because the last time it has huge percentage was in 2011, that drawdown was around -94%.

So if we base on the current all-time high, which is $126,000, and it drops to $1,000, that is around -99% drawdown, first in history!
Will it recover? Yes, I believe it will still recover because we already had a lot of experience huge dumps from the past.

[Hypnotizer]

[Trigger warning / Disclaimer] This is only a speculative horror fairytaile   It's not something I consider likely (not completely impossible, but less than 1% likelihood).

In another thread I got the following shower thought:

What, if purely by forces of speculation and panic selling, but without a fundamental reason like a bug or quantum computing, Bitcoin takes a massive dip which erases more than 95% of its value, letting it fall as low as $1000 or so?

Can that ever happen by just Panic selling or some other speculation? I don’t think so personally..like 95% percent of bitcoin value being erased? That will be a very surprising scenario and the likelihood isn’t just less than 1% it should be less than 0.1%..

Would Bitcoin recover?

Uhhm…..yeah I think so!

There are many potential reasons for such a fall to be at least hypothetically possible:

- Strategy (Saylor) goes bankrupt and has to sell all coins, creating extreme panic.
- The US Strategic Bitcoin reserve is removed and sold.
- Tether goes bankrupt.
- Blackrock removes its Bitcoin ETF.
- Satoshi's coins are sold (not by quantum hackers, but by Satoshi himself).
- Massive chain reaction and panic after a stock market crash like in 2008.

Theoretical these scenarios might cause a very big negative impact on the market but I still don’t think any of these can make the price sink to $1000…

My own crystal ball says that it the price is likely to recover in the mid to long term, even possibly in the short term, for two reasons:

1) Many people will take this as a massive opportunity. Many of those that missed the train before 2017 would be happy to enter the market for such a low price. Because even a recovery to $10,000 would mean massive profits.
2) It's possible that many early cypherpunks and idealist Bitcoiners could return if "the Wall Street bros" are out, e.g. if Saylor, the ETFs and the US government exit the market. This could even be the base for a more healthy growth as currency and storage of value.

Why? Because Bitcoin's value proposition of the most secure and active decentralized payment network has not changed.

Yeah, many people might possibly use the big opportunity to accumulate a lot of bitcoins because it is really cheap, we might see a massive influx of capital into bitcoin..

This is of course possible if and only if:

- There is no other decentralized cryptocurrency which took Bitcoin's place and its competition was the main reason for the crash.

Will there ever be? Even if there is another decentralized crypto `competing’ with bitcoin, I don’t think it can ever be a reason for such crash!

Share your opinion

That’s my opinion above⬆️

[Ishicryptic]

Don't be surprised that some people are actually fantasizing about Bitcoin crashing to anywhere around $1000k range so that they can get a second chance to enter the market and empty their savings on accumulating the dip. Achieving this feat will be a pipe dream but it is important to note that nothing is entirely impossible as far as Bitcoin value is concerned. Bitcoin has gained so much trust as a store of value that no matter how low it's value drops it has potentials to always recover because as some holders are dumping on the market others are buying them up.

Bitcoin value is based on it's scarcity which is it's limited supply and as more investors are hodling it in anticipation of making profit on the long term, this will always make demand to always be greater than supply. As long as this circle of supply being greater than demand on the long term keeps reoccuring we can be positive that we will always see ATH no matter how low it plunges.

[aoluain]

I have replied to various threads pertaining to the possibility of the Bitcoin market hitting $1000.

My point is always the same - would the market even get a chance to go that low?


We have heard over the years of some people saying that if they were back in 2010, 2011, 2013 etc.
they would sell everything to buy Bitcoin. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but time travel is not possible.

Now imaging the market hits $50k, I think there would be fairly strong buying pressure,
what if it hit $25k, that would surely result in fierce buying pressure,
$10k - what can I do to get as much FIAT into Bitcoin
$1k - sell my house

There are many potential reasons for such a fall to be at least hypothetically possible:

- Strategy (Saylor) goes bankrupt and has to sell all coins, creating extreme panic.
- The US Strategic Bitcoin reserve is removed and sold.
- Tether goes bankrupt.
- Blackrock removes its Bitcoin ETF.
- Satoshi's coins are sold (not by quantum hackers, but by Satoshi himself).
- Massive chain reaction and panic after a stock market crash like in 2008.

Yea, probably all those would trigger a market dip/crash/armageddon but for sure it would recover.
If Bitcoin now is greater than any one person, even Satoshi, its definitely greater than all of the above.

[Rain1620]

Already there is a proven historical record that Bitcoin survived death whenever it is likely to crash, and at some point, it make new scale-ups. And there is a level of certainty that the more something survives the more it’s likely to persist and even grow stronger.

Bitcoin falling to $1000 and the failure isn’t technical will result a sudden difficult test. However if it will continuously produce a block per ten minutes not minding the current price, the basic value proposition will still be intact.
Like you mentioned “Wall Street Bros” exiting, this might somehow be beneficial because the coin transfer from forced sellers to conviction buyers by high scale liquidation would be a wealth transfer, reason being that at $1000 new set of investors will eventually own a Bitcoin, and this whole scenario of massive new ownership will increase the level of decentralized holder base.

While I’m of the opinion that recovery is likely, the duration shouldn’t be underestimated, this is because Bitcoin has grown to a certain level whereby reducing down to $1000 will be a very massive drop, and somehow history has some record of how long recovery took when Bitcoin seem do drop to such levels. But then there is a high tendency that recovery is possible

[pooya87]

The problem with this experiment is that it is difficult to predict the recovery part without knowing the reason for the drop (although a drop is 10%, or 30%, while 70% is a crash after a bubble and 99% is a catastrophic annihilation of the price ).

What, if purely by forces of speculation and panic selling, but without a fundamental reason like a bug or quantum computing, Bitcoin takes a massive dip which erases more than 95% of its value, letting it fall as low as $1000 or so?

Would Bitcoin recover?

How would you define recovery?
- Entering bull run? Definitely
- Going up 100%? Definitely, it would reach $2k and that is 100% profit.
- Going back up to $120k? Unlikely. At least not for a decade.

BTW from ATH ($120k) to $1k is -99% drop not 95%.

[Renampun]

Even though I don't really believe that the scenarios you mentioned will happen, but if we assume that it really happens and Bitcoin drops so badly more than 95% of its value, I'm sure that it will recover again because there are definitely still so many people who believe in Bitcoin and even though it causes massive fear, people who believe in Bitcoin will still buy it and make the price rise again, but maybe it will take longer because the position is only people who really believe in Bitcoin who buy it and the trust of the holders needs to be rebuilt, but for sure the price will rise again.

[noorman0]

-snip-
but without a fundamental reason like a bug or quantum computing, Bitcoin takes a massive dip which erases more than 95% of its value, letting it fall as low as $1000 or so?

Would Bitcoin recover?

Since you're limiting the technical scenario,  I'm 1000% confident Bitcoin can recover from a 95% crash. We only need to look at the history of dumps, which average over 84% each cycle (a rough estimate):

• 2011: –93%
• 2015: –86%
• 2018: –84%
• 2022: –77%

And each time, it recovers and reaches new record highs. Your 95% scenario is simply a more extreme version of these cycles and time will prove (again) that it remains unbeatable. The recovery may not be instantaneous in under a year, but it will certainly weed out the speculators and leave the true believers.

[Yamane_Keto]

Of all the reasons mentioned, the potential collapse of Tether (or stablecoins in general) is the most likely cause of this price drop, as stablecoin trading and usage have become comparable to Bitcoin trading and usage.

bankruptcy of Strategy typically attracts new institutional investment. The withdrawal of Bitcoin ETFs is likely to increase investment in companies like Strategy&, and Satoshi Nakamoto doesn't appear likely to return anytime soon. A price drop to $1,000 might not signal the end of Bitcoin, provided there is a rapid recovery, as occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic.

[philipma1957]

It could drop to zero is a given in the question.

What never fails to amaze me is almost every answer is it can't drop to 1k.

Too bad the op did not make it self moderated.

So since the 1000 is a given my answer is recovery would be a beast.

1000 would shoot back to 10000 easy peasy.



To all that argue 1000 is impossible in the real world I do agree that is likely to never happen but it is not part of the thought experiment.

[fuguebtc]

If somehow Bitcoin down to $1000 due to panic selling, I bet it will rise again like phoenix

You know, Bitcoin's network, user base, and adoption are only growing day by day. Just because the price has plummeted the real power behind this technology will not disappear. For me, if somehow Bitcoin dip $1000 will be like getting the moon in my hand, everyone will rush to buy it. Actually no one will think of it as the end but rather as the best chance to get rich.

And yeah the crash scenarios you mentioned, like microstrategy selling everything, ETFs falling or tether catching up are all a game of human fear and sentiment. They have nothing to do with the Bitcoin protocol or its core foundation. As long as the chain or network is secure people will definitely return to stacking and trading coin

[d5000]

Answering two posts at the same time as their questions are related

The problem with this experiment is that it is difficult to predict the recovery part without knowing the reason for the drop [...] How would you define recovery?

While I’m of the opinion that recovery is likely, the duration shouldn’t be underestimated, this is because Bitcoin has grown to a certain level whereby reducing down to $1000 will be a very massive drop, and somehow history has some record of how long recovery took when Bitcoin seem do drop to such levels.

We're of course talking about a very unlikely event, but the most likely scenario for a drop to $1000 is a multi year bear market with several of the "triggers" I mentioned in the OP (Saylor bankruptcy, US & El Salvador (?) selling ...) occurring at the same time or in a short sequence, and some may also be a consequence of this crash. For example, Terra/Luna and FTX were triggered by a price drop and deepened the 2022 bear market.

Even if we had a "normal" bear market which lasts more than 1,5 years with lower lows, it is possible that this bear goes deeper in price than what everybody expects just because of the duration of the bear. Bitcoin never experienced a multi year bear market like gold did for example, and the reaction to a 2-3 year bear could be that the sentiment turns into a "now Bitcoin isn't recovering anymore! is it dead now?" and doom prophets will have their heyday.

This is the main scenario I have for a fall to $1000. For a flash crash, $1000 is too far away, the lowest I could imagine for a "normal" crash in less than a year is maybe the FTX lows (15k$) or at most $10,000.

So there must be some extreme negative sentiment for the market to reach this price, and until that builds up, it would take some time.

But even taking this into account, $1000 may be an extreme undervaluation. It's likely in this case that every negative news event or bankruptcy triggers a new low every couple of months (e.g. from a "normal crash level of 50k" down to 30k, then 20k). Things could accelerate a bit if the FTX low from 2022 is broken (15,500$) and $10,000 could also be a point with massive liquidations and take us to $5000, and then a final liquidation wave flashcrashes down to $1000.

In such a scenario I would also expect first a fast recovery to 2-5k. Once this happens, discussions will start about if Bitcoin is really dead and what will happen. I think the recovery then depends largely on the way the community acts.

A good example for a very adversial scenario where the community was able to create organic growth is the Monero crash from 2024 when it got delisted from several exchanges. They built up decentralized swapping services and the price was able to recover and even hit a new ATH. This was only an ~80% drop but the sentiment in the community was "terminal fear" during some time.

Of course I shouldn't compare Bitcoin to an altcoin, but if Wall Street has exited, and Bitcoin recovers with a similar "community-driven development", e.g. with technologies like Lightning and decentralized exchanges being strengthened, then I see good chances that even after a $1000 crash it could quite fastly recover. Maybe conquering $10k again in a year or so, and then go to current price levels again once the sentiment becomes overwhelmingly positive. And from the current price level an ATH is only less than a doubling away.

For a "recovery" I would mean a return to the 2021-25 price range (roughly 20k-125k).

[Zaguru12]

There are many potential reasons for such a fall to be at least hypothetically possible:

- Strategy (Saylor) goes bankrupt and has to sell all coins, creating extreme panic.
- The US Strategic Bitcoin reserve is removed and sold.
- Tether goes bankrupt.
- Blackrock removes its Bitcoin ETF.
- Satoshi's coins are sold (not by quantum hackers, but by Satoshi himself).
- Massive chain reaction and panic after a stock market crash like in 2008.

I was actually going to say NO base on the title on the voting pool because it says without any fundamentals for the fall because let’s be realistic bitcoin will actually recover easily if the fall is fundamentally inclined, a fall around -99% without fundamental effect is simply saying that bitcoin network is most likely the one that closes so for that I don’t see a recovery.

But for the reasons you listed above which are all fundamentals I think bitcoin will recover, in fact it will recover easily from some of the listed reasons there, example is Microstrategy liquidating that isn’t far from exchanges collapsing. But should they happen all at once which if it is not impossible is highly improbable I think it will take time before the market recovers. For example the Satoshi coins getting sold at the same time that MSTR is liquidating will seriously need more years for full time recovery.

I still am with the believe that bitcoin going to $1k is only possible if we all are migrating to something better than it which for now I don’t see it.

[Wiwo]

From what is mentioned, asides for n the Satoshi Bitcoin sold out that is the only reason that bitcoin could not recover from that event because of the fundamental connection between Satoshi Bitcoin holding and the trust the community have in the invisible hand that makes bitcoin uncontrollable.

If satoshi wake up and dumps his bitcoin, the entire community will lose faith in bitcoin and buying at such a price as $1000 becomes none attractive.

But aside from that, whatever you mentioned is not able to hold bitcoin down even if such a price dip is triggered, they can't hold the market down for long.

[Rain1620]

Answering two posts at the same time as their questions are related

The problem with this experiment is that it is difficult to predict the recovery part without knowing the reason for the drop [...] How would you define recovery?

While I’m of the opinion that recovery is likely, the duration shouldn’t be underestimated, this is because Bitcoin has grown to a certain level whereby reducing down to $1000 will be a very massive drop, and somehow history has some record of how long recovery took when Bitcoin seem do drop to such levels.

We're of course talking about a very unlikely event, but the most likely scenario for a drop to $1000 is a multi year bear market with several of the "triggers" I mentioned in the OP (Saylor bankruptcy, US & El Salvador (?) selling ...) occurring at the same time or in a short sequence, and some may also be a consequence of this crash. For example, Terra/Luna and FTX were triggered by a price drop and deepened the 2022 bear market.

Even if we had a "normal" bear market which lasts more than 1,5 years with lower lows, it is possible that this bear goes deeper in price than what everybody expects just because of the duration of the bear. Bitcoin never experienced a multi year bear market like gold did for example, and the reaction to a 2-3 year bear could be that the sentiment turns into a "now Bitcoin isn't recovering anymore! is it dead now?" and doom prophets will have their heyday.

This is the main scenario I have for a fall to $1000. For a flash crash, $1000 is too far away, the lowest I could imagine for a "normal" crash in less than a year is maybe the FTX lows (15k$) or at most $10,000.

So there must be some extreme negative sentiment for the market to reach this price, and until that builds up, it would take some time.

But even taking this into account, $1000 may be an extreme undervaluation. It's likely in this case that every negative news event or bankruptcy triggers a new low every couple of months (e.g. from a "normal crash level of 50k" down to 30k, then 20k). Things could accelerate a bit if the FTX low from 2022 is broken (15,500$) and $10,000 could also be a point with massive liquidations and take us to $5000, and then a final liquidation wave flashcrashes down to $1000.

In such a scenario I would also expect first a fast recovery to 2-5k. Once this happens, discussions will start about if Bitcoin is really dead and what will happen. I think the recovery then depends largely on the way the community acts.

A good example for a very adversial scenario where the community was able to create organic growth is the Monero crash from 2024 when it got delisted from several exchanges. They built up decentralized swapping services and the price was able to recover and even hit a new ATH. This was only an ~80% drop but the sentiment in the community was "terminal fear" during some time.

Of course I shouldn't compare Bitcoin to an altcoin, but if Wall Street has exited, and Bitcoin recovers with a similar "community-driven development", e.g. with technologies like Lightning and decentralized exchanges being strengthened, then I see good chances that even after a $1000 crash it could quite fastly recover. Maybe conquering $10k again in a year or so, and then go to current price levels again once the sentiment becomes overwhelmingly positive. And from the current price level an ATH is only less than a doubling away.

For a "recovery" I would mean a return to the 2021-25 price range (roughly 20k-125k).

I appreciate your detailed breakdown, you’ve shown a very valid picture on how a fall in liquidation is capable of technically triggering such low price.
Building on some few points you highlighted, concerning the community driven recovery and its duration to be precise, you made mention of “recovery depending on how the community acts” but then, while the community is like a backbone to Bitcoin, let’s examine it that a fall to $1000 will now necessitate liquidation of ETFs and huge balance sheets which is different from the early days where recovery is not just about the natural growth from advocates but about finding and building trust again in the whole digital asset class for global finance. This builds a level of complexity to the recovery agenda that haven’t been observed in preceding cycles.

If Bitcoin falls to $1000 as a result of liquidation wave the rise to $5000 may be fast like you mentioned but then, if Bitcoin gets to such level via the triggers you stated, then we looking at a foundational move in the narrative . In such cases like history suggested, the recovery process of the price may take more time than the crashing phase took.

Building on my comment that you quoted,I think the most undermined factor here is the duration. Bitcoin falling from it current state to $1000 will be a huge historical exception. Even if at the end it rises back the conceptual damage of such crash may keep most individuals stocked in bear cycle for a long time.
Recovery is not just about hitting the target price, it’s also about the time taken for the view to shift from fears and anxiety back to true belief.