Many people had lofty hopes for bitcoin’s price in 2018, after the impressive rally in 2017. As valuation has recently dipped below $3,500 on some exchanges, those predictions seem ever more unlikely to be fulfilled.
So in the spirit of macabre humor, CryptoGlobe is recapping the ten most adventurous bitcoin price predictions of 2018.
10. Mike Novogratz
Mike Novogratz is known for his bold and hopeful predictions, combined with an institutional air of legitimacy and success. Not long ago predicting a $40k run in 2018, he recently, in October, cobbled together a much more sober estimation of $9k by year’s end – less than half of 2017’s high.
Time of prediction: October 2018; prediction: $9k by end of 2018
9. Pantera Capital
Pantera Capital has done well for itself over the years, earning in the ballpark of 10,000% returns at the time of its fifth anniversary, this past July. They predicted a $5,000 bitcoin way back in 2013, and took the occasion to reiterate the “original logic” that led them to their prediction – and that it’s “equally compelling today.”
Time of prediction: July 2018; prediction: $21k end of 2018, $67.5k by end of 2019
8. Tom Lee
Tom Lee of Fundstrat often graces the TV studios of financial news channels, to laud the prospects of the cryptoasset industry and give hopeful price predictions. Accordingly, in May he gave three reasons why bitcoin would reach $25,000 by year’s end (when bitcoin was trading at about $8000).
The first was that bitcoin’s price was at mining cost; second, there was plenty of institutional interest waiting for clearer regulations; finally, bitcoin tends to move very rapidly when it finally does move.
Given the thrashing bitcoin has experienced in the past week or so, Lee revised his prediction a few days ago, for more modest $15,000 bitcoin by year’s end. But even this reigned in prediction looks highly ambitious at this point.
Time of prediction: May [November] 2018; prediction: $25k [$15k] by end of 2018
6 & 7. Arthur Hayes & Antony Pompilano
BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes and Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano, have gone on record for a $50k bitcoin by year’s end. Hayes stated in a Fast Money interview “I would like to see us test $5,000 [check], to really see if we’ve put a bottom in.” Earlier that month, he made some qualified predictions pending an exchange traded fund (ETF) approval: “But we’re one positive regulatory decision away, many an ETF approved by the SEC, to climbing through $20,000 and even to $50,000 by the end of the year.”
As for the Pomp, he too was betting in July that an ETF and new institutional money would, together, propel the depressed cryptocurrency to new highs. Considering that the ETF being considered, the VanEck/SolidX ETF, might not be decided on until February 2019, $50k seems like a hard sell. Having said that, theHODL5 exchange traded product was just launched by Amun AG with an index provided by MV Index Solutions (MVIS).
I’ve stuck to my $50,000 Bitcoin price target for end of year 2018.
Still have high confidence on the $50,000 number. The timeframe is the big unknown.
The next 5 months will be fun to watch.
— Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) July 25, 2018
Time of prediction: July 2018; prediction: $50k (upon ETF approval) by end of 2018.
5. Ari Paul
Ari Paul’s tweet storm musings on 2018, during the heady times of the still fresh bull run way back in January, seem a long way away. Paul claimed bitcoin would trade at both $6k and $60k during the year (check on one of those). Other fun predictions include BCH hardforking (check), that global adoption of cryptoassets would triple from 1% to 3%, and a crypto killer dApp with adoption “an order of magnitude bigger than cryptokitties.”
Paul updated his predictions midyear, reforming his $60k prediction and calling it “very unlikely.” Still a good read.
Time of prediction: January 2018; prediction: $6-60k by end of 2018.
4. John Pfeffer
John Pfeffer, a London-based traditional investing veteran, thinks that bitcoin could become a reliable store of value for institutions, and take a market share from gold investments. In this case, he estimates, bitcoin would eventually be valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars – but for now, he said in January, $75,000 before 2019 was not unreasonable.
Time of prediction: January 2018; prediction: $75k by end of 2018.
To Infinity and Beyond
We will transcend the bounds of 2018, and of bitcoin, for the final three predictions.
3. Tim Draper
Tim Draper, a billionaire venture capitalist and political activist – who was an early investor in Tesla, Skype, and bitcoin – has a successful track record of predicting bitcoin prices, having called – in fact lowballed – a $10,000 valuation by 2017, way back in 2014 when he bought 30,000 bitcoin from a US government auction of Silk Road contraband bitcoin.
Ealier this year, he refreshed his prediction for modern times and threw his hand in for a $250,000 bitcoin valuation by 2022-3, even re-confirming this estimation weeks ago during the most recent Web Summit.
Time of prediction: November 2018; prediction: $250k between 2022-3.
2. John McAfee
No crypto prediction list could be complete without John McAfee, the love-him-or-hate him rogue of this industry. Mcafee infamously proclaimed on Twitter that he would eat one of his own vital appendages live “on national television” (it begs the question, which television station would host such content?) if bitcoin was not valued at $500,000 by mid 2020 – and later upped the ante to at least $1 million – “More likely $3 mil” he added.
Time of prediction: April 2018; prediction: $1-3 million by mid-2020
Many analysts debate whether bitcoin should be charted using a logarithmic or linear price scale. So we have inlcuded the long term price predictions on both, the difference is quite substantial.
Bitcoin Price Predictions (linear chart)
Bitcoin Price Predictions (Log Chart)
1. Changpeng Zhao
For the #1 grandest prediction of 2018, we’ll go beyond both bitcoin and 2018 or any real time frame at all. During 2017 Binance quickly became the most successful exchange trading non-leveraged altcoins. Binance’s founder and CEO, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, expects 2018 profits close to a billion dollars, despite the crypto downturn.
A couple of months ago, when bitcoin’s price was lingering around $6-7,000, CZ issued a tweet proposing that the valuation of the “crypto market” could rise by a further thousand times in the next few years. He and Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s Wunderkind founder, discussed the possibility of an eventual $200 trillion overall market capitalization for the industry. Vitalik expects exponential growth in the industry, but not that much growth; CZ, however, says it will “absolutely” get there.
Time of prediction: September 2018; prediction: $200 trillion valuation of the crypto industry, “in the long term.”
