Recently, an award-winning emerging markets fund manager explained why he has a pessimistic outlook for Bitcoin in 2023.

Dr. Mark Mobius co-founded emerging and frontier markets asset manager Mobius Capital Partners in 2018. Here is some more information from his bio:

“Prior to launching Mobius Capital Partners LLP in May 2018, Dr. Mobius was with Franklin Templeton Investments for more than 30 years, most recently as executive chairman of the Templeton Emerging Markets Group. During his tenure, the group expanded assets under management from US$100 million to over US$50,000 million and launched a number of emerging market and frontier funds focusing on Asia, Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe… Dr. Mobius received his Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and has studied at Boston University, University of Wisconsin, Syracuse University, Kyoto University and the University of New Mexico.“

Dr. Mobius told CNBC on Thursday (1 December 2022) that he expects the Bitcoin price to hover around the $17,000 level for some time before possibly collapsing to as low as $10,000 next year.

He said (via email):

“With higher interest rates, the attraction of holding or buying Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies becomes less attractive since just holding the coin does not pay interest… Of course there have been a number of offerings of 5% or higher interest rates for crypto deposits but many of those companies offering such rates have gone bust partly as a result of FTX. So as those losses mount people become scared of holding the crypto coin in order to earn interest.“

He also mentioned that the last bull market (which ended in November 2021) was driven by the Federal Reserve’s “printing machine working over time”, which meant that “money supply in USD rose by 40% plus in the last few years,” thereby providing “abundant cash to speculate on crypto.” This year, the Fed continuously hiking interest rates in the U.S. to fight inflation means that “the ability for people to play in the market becomes much more difficult.”

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