Cryptocurrency industry insiders predict bitcoin could hit a recent all-time high in 2023 and possibly reach $100,000. It comes after a noted investor bet that the digital currency could go to $1 million in 90 days.
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Bitcoin has rallied nearly 70% to date this 12 months — and industry insiders who spoke to CNBC remain bullish, with one saying the world’s biggest cryptocurrency could reach recent heights.
Bitcoin previously hit its all-time high of $68,990.90 in November 2021. Since then it has fallen about 60%.
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Marshall Beard, chief strategy officer at U.S.-headquartered cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, said $100,000 may very well be a possibility for bitcoin.
“I feel bitcoin probably breaks all-time highs this 12 months,” Beard said, adding that the $100,000 price figure is an “interesting number.”
Beard said that if bitcoin gets to its previous record high of near $69,000, “it doesn’t take far more for it to lift up” to $100,000.
Bitcoin would want to rally around 270% to hit $100,000.
Paolo Ardoino, chief technology officer at stablecoin issuer Tether, said bitcoin could “retest” its all-time high near $69,000.
The predictions of recent record highs mark a more optimistic outlook than in January when industry executives told CNBC that they expected 2023 to be a 12 months of caution.
Is bitcoin finally becoming ‘digital gold’?
A part of the industry’s positive view on bitcoin at once actually stems from how the asset has performed throughout the banking turmoil sparked by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the failure of two crypto-friendly lenders Silvergate Capital and Signature Bank.
As a substitute of crashing, bitcoin rallied.
Bitcoin proponents say that is evidence that bitcoin is offering a substitute for the standard banking system as a spot for people to maintain their money protected.
“I feel the rally is explicable by saying, people have gotten freaked out by the banking system by the collapses,” Oliver Linch, CEO of Bittrex Global, told CNBC in an interview at Paris Blockchain Week on Thursday.
For a few years, bitcoin advocates have argued bitcoin is a type of “digital gold” — a safe-haven asset that may provide investors a hedge against inflation and an investment in times of turmoil. But over the past few years, bitcoin has traded in correlation with stocks, specifically the tech-heavy Nasdaq.
There are actually signs of decoupling with bitcoin massively outperforming the Nasdaq, many other risk-assets and gold this 12 months.
But bitcoin also got a lift on hopes the banking crisis possibly reduce the U.S. Federal Reserve’s ability to be as aggressive on rate of interest rises, which could be supportive for risk assets like cryptocurrencies.
The $1 million bitcoin bet
Discussion of where the digital coin’s price could go this 12 months has been rife since Balaji Srinivasan, an investor and the previous technology chief at Coinbase, wagered on Mar. 17 that bitcoin could be price $1 million or more in 90 days. He bet $2 million.
The wager was in response to a Twitter user who said that they’d bet $1 million that the U.S. doesn’t enter hyperinflation.
Srinivasan argued that the “world redenominates on Bitcoin as digital gold” as hyperinflation kicks in, erodes the worth of the U.S. dollar, and nations, individuals and corporations begin to purchase large amounts of bitcoin. Hyperinflation is the large rise in prices in an economy.
I feel for bitcoin to be one million dollars in 90 days, some crazy things are happening on this planet, which we don’t need.
Marshall Beard
Chief strategy officer, Gemini
A $1 million price on bitcoin would represent a roughly 3,600% increase from the digital currency’s current price.
Most individuals have poured cold water on this prediction.
Gemini’s Bear said “there’s probably a world where bitcoin hits one million dollars” but not in 90 days as Srinivasan wagered.
“I feel for bitcoin to be one million dollars in 90 days, some crazy things are happening on this planet, which we don’t need,” Beard said, adding that it could take 10 years to get anywhere near that figure.
Tether’s Ardoino echoed the sentiment that if bitcoin were to hit $1 million in 90 days, it will likely mean an unusual economic event.
“I’m form of skeptical about that, because truthfully, I would not even hope for that,” Ardoino told CNBC in an interview at Paris Blockchain Week, that aired Thursday.
“Because if bitcoin would reach such a high price level, [it] would mean that the whole economy will crumble. I’m undecided [that] is the world that we wish to live in.”