Wild predictions about Bitcoin (BTC-USD) and its future value have been around pretty much ever since Bitcoin has been around. But one of the newest predictions suggests that all it will take is one key shift in the market to send Bitcoin rocketing up over five times what it it’s worth right now.
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The word out of Tom Lee—one of the founders of Fundstrat Global Advisors—offered up an interview to CNBC, in which he delivered a huge new projection for Bitcoin’s total value. Should a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) actually manage to get a start in the U.S., Lee noted, the value of Bitcoin would, roughly, quintuple, reaching over $150,000 per coin. It might even go so far as to hit $180,000 per coin. This is an impressive projection given that Bitcoin has hovered between just under $29,000 and just over $30,000 per coin for the last month.
The idea of a five-fold, even a six-fold leap may seem excessive, but Lee’s projections hinge on a point that crypto investors and enthusiasts of all stripes have been pointing to for years: institutional investment. When the banks and the various funds—mutual, hedge, pension, and so on—can get involved in crypto to its fullest extent, then that means a whole lot of capital flooding in. Already, we’re seeing signs that a Bitcoin holder from the original Satoshi era was recently reactivated. That holder had 1,005 Bitcoin to its name, worth close to $30 million by itself. And with Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) winning approval for cryptocurrency futures, that may be the next tipping point to make such gains possible. PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL), however, is seeing trouble in this front. Its stablecoin has drawn concern from the U.S. Congress, and it’s halted its activities in the U.K over similar legal issues.
A look at the last three months in Bitcoin pricing shows at least some of that volatility we’ve seen at the one year level, though not quite so pronounced. Indeed, the last few weeks have been much more tightly grouped. But before then, Bitcoin rallied from a declining path in late May into about mid-June.
