There's a very simple reason why it would not surprise me at all if Bitcoin hit $5K before the year ends. Over ten years of experience investing in the stock market have impressed on me how people hate uncertainty.
They really, really hate it.
They hate it so much they will pay to avoid it. In fact Mohnish Pabrai, a terrific investor, built a strategy around it.
Pabrai's idea is how the investment community sometimes confuses actual risk with uncertainty. Something very similar is happening with Bitcoin and the Segwit2x deal these days.
With all these discussions about forks, splitting Bitcoin into two Bitcoin and community disagreement people get confused. There can be many different outcomes and that's scary.
But aren't we confusing uncertainty and risk here.
What are the odds that your Bitcoin holdings lose a tremendous amount of value come August? My guess is that that chance isn't all that high. There's been a Segwit implementation on Litecoin. Ethereum actually split into two chains and it didn't hurt its value to say the least.
What people are fleeing from is the uncertainty. The worst outcome for Bitcoin is for the uncertainty to continue for a long period of time. Once a change has been made it is a done deal. There may be a couple of days of chaos and maybe some interesting stories but after that the new situation is what it is and people start to adapt to it.
Once uncertainty is removed people will feel safe investing again.
In my opinion Bitcoin is the safest cryptocurrency now and it will be come August but today it's probably cheaper. It has been held back for several months now while some of pretenders to the throne have surged. That's why I don't think $5k is that outrageous once this headwind dissapears for Bitcoin.
Or as Pabrai likes to say:
"Heads I win, Tails I Don't Lose Much"