Bitcoin (BTC) now almost perfectly aligns with the historically accurate price chart, which has charted its growth from pennies to digital gold.
According to data from Digitalik, a resource that monitors Bitcoin's position relative to the Stock-to-Flow model, as of Jan. 20, BTC/USD is exactly where it should be.
$8.6K Bitcoin sticks rigidly to forecasts
Stock-to-Flow measures the Bitcoin price using two factors: the stock — the number of Bitcoins in circulation — and the flow, which is the number of new Bitcoins entering circulation.
Bitcoin's low emission rate relative to its existing supply — like gold — means Stock-to-Flow constitutes useful evidence in the argument that Bitcoin is "digital gold."
The cryptocurrency's run-up to $9,000 last week took it slightly over where Stock-to-Flow pricing forecasts suggested it might trade.
Bitcoin price versus Stock-to-Flow. Source: Digitalik/ PlanB
At press time, however, BTC/USD traded at $8,680 — just $150 above the forecasts.
BTC on track for $100,000 in 2021
As Cointelegraph previously reported, Stock-to-Flow’s creator, the analyst known as PlanB, originally suggested that Bitcoin would hover at an average of in the year before its block reward halving in May 2020.
At that point, a 50% reduction in the number of new Bitcoins released to miners each block would further limit the flow versus the existing stock. Thereafter, he has said, price performance should accelerate dramatically — by 2022, a single Bitcoin should be worth around $100,000.
In 2019, BTC/USD only temporarily diverged from Stock-to-Flow as it hit $13,800, only to fall below expectations for a similarly brief period in December.