Arab Press

بالشعب و للشعب
Friday, Mar 29, 2024

The boldest bitcoin calls for 2023 are out — and a 1,400% rally or a 70% plunge may be on the cards

The boldest bitcoin calls for 2023 are out — and a 1,400% rally or a 70% plunge may be on the cards

Some market players have stuck their neck out with price calls for what could be another volatile year.

2022 was a rough year for crypto. More than $1.3 trillion was wiped off the value of the market. And bitcoin, the world’s largest digital coin, saw its price slump more than 60%.

Investors were caught off guard by a wave of collapses in the industry from stablecoin project terraUSD to crypto exchange FTX, as well as a worsening macroeconomic climate. Those who made predictions about bitcoin’s price in the past year really missed the mark.

But with 2023 now here, some market players have stuck their neck out with price calls for what could be another volatile year.

Interest rates around the world are on the rise, and that’s weighing on risk assets like stocks and bitcoin. Investors are also watching how the FTX saga, which resulted in the arrest of the company’s founder Sam Bankman-Fried in the Bahamas, will develop.

CNBC rounds up some of the boldest price calls for bitcoin in 2023.


Tim Draper: $250,000


Bitcoin bull Tim Draper had one of the most optimistic calls on bitcoin of 2022, predicting the token would be worth $250,000 by the end of the year.

In November, the billionaire venture capitalist said he’s extending the timeline for that prediction until mid-2023. Even after the collapse of FTX, he’s convinced the coin will hit the quarter-of-a-million milestone.

“My assumption is that since women control 80% of retail spending, and only 1 in 7 bitcoin wallets are currently held by women that the dam is about to break,” Draper told CNBC via email.

Bitcoin would need to rally 1,400% in order for it to trade at that level.

Despite the depressed prices and trading volumes drying up, there could be reason to suspect the market has found a bottom, according to Draper.

“I suspect that the halvening in 2024 will have a positive run,” he said.

The halvening, or halving, is an event that happens every four years in which bitcoin rewards to miners are cut in half. This is viewed by some investors as positive for bitcoin’s price, as it squeezes supply. The next halving is slated to happen sometime in 2024.

Bitcoin miners, who use power-intensive machines to verify transactions and mint new tokens, are being squeezed by the slump in prices and rising energy costs.

These actors accumulate massive piles of digital currency, making them some of the biggest sellers in the market. With miners offloading their holdings to pay off debts, that should remove most of the remaining selling pressure on bitcoin.

That’s historically a good sign for bitcoin, said Vijay Ayyar, vice president of corporate development at crypto exchange Luno.

“In prior down markets, miner capitulation has usually indicated major bottoms,” Ayyar told CNBC. “Their cost to produce becomes greater than the value of bitcoin, hence you have a number of miners either switching off their machines … or they need to sell more bitcoin to keep their business afloat.”

“If the market reaches a point where it’s absorbing this miner sell pressure sufficiently, one can assume that we’re seeing a bottoming period.”


Standard Chartered: $5,000


For some market participants, the worst is yet to come.

In a Dec. 5 research note, Standard Chartered said bitcoin may sink as low as $5,000. The prediction, one of the bank’s list of “surprises” that are being “under-priced” by markets, would represent a 70% plunge from current prices.

“Yields plunge along with technology shares” in Standard Chartered’s nightmare 2023 scenario, “and while the Bitcoin sell-off decelerates, the damage has been done,” said Eric Robertsen, the bank’s global head of research.

“More and more crypto firms and exchanges find themselves with insufficient liquidity, leading to further bankruptcies and a collapse in investor confidence in digital assets,” he added.

Robertsen said the scenario has a “non-zero probability of occurring in the year ahead” and falls “materially outside of the market consensus or our own baseline views.”


Mark Mobius: $10,000


Veteran investor Mark Mobius had a relatively successful 2022 in terms of his price call. In May, he forecast bitcoin would drop to $20,000 when it was trading above $28,000.

He said bitcoin would fall to $10,000 in 2022. That did not happen. However, Mobius told CNBC that he is sticking for his $10,000 price call in 2023.

The investor, who made his name at Franklin Templeton Investments, told CNBC that his bear case for bitcoin stemmed from rising interest rates and general tighter monetary policy from the U.S. Federal Reserve.

“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,” Mobius said via email.


Carol Alexander: $50,000


Carol Alexander, professor of finance at Sussex University, wasn’t far off the mark with her prediction that bitcoin would slip to $10,000 in 2022.

Now, she thinks the cryptocurrency could be set for gains — but not for reasons you might expect.

The catalyst would be more dominos from the FTX fallout tipping over, Alexander said. If this happens, she expects the price of bitcoin will top $30,000 in the first quarter, and then $50,000 by quarters three or four.

“There will be a managed bull market in 2023, not a bubble — so we won’t see the price overshooting as before,” she told CNBC.

“We’ll see a month or two of stable trending prices interspersed with range-bounded periods and probably a couple of short-lived crashes.”

Alexander’s reasoning is that, with trading volumes evaporating with traders on edge, large holders known as “whales” will likely step in to prop up the market. The wealthiest 97 bitcoin wallet addresses account for 14.15% of the total supply, according to fintech firm River Financial.

Some investors have given up trying to predict the price of bitcoin. For Antoni Trenchev, CEO of crypto lending platform Nexo, the recent events are a sobering moment.

Bitcoin was on a “positive path” earlier in 2022, with institutional adoption rising, but “a few major forces interfered,” he said.

Trenchev once predicted bitcoin surging to a peak of $100,000 by early 2023. Now, he’s done trying to predict the price.

Laith Khalaf, financial analyst at AJ Bell, suggested attempts to forecast bitcoin’s price are futile.

“We could be sitting here talking this time next year and it could be at $5,000 or 50,000 it just wouldn’t surprise me because the market is so heavily driven by sentiment,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

Arab Press
0:00
0:00
Close
China Criticizes US for Vetoing UN Ceasefire Resolution in Gaza
Saudi Arabia ranks first in UN index for e-government services in MENA
Israel Records 20% Drop In GDP, War In Gaza Is The Reason
Saudi Arabia's FDI Inflows Grow with New International Standards
Venture Capitals Power Up Across MENA Region
PM Modi Announces Opening Of New CBSE Office In Dubai
January Funding for MENA Startups Totals $86.5 Million
Saudi Arabia accelerates digital economy growth through Nvidia partnership
Israel unveils tunnels underneath Gaza City headquarters of UN agency for Palestinian refugees
Israel deploys new military AI in Gaza war
Egypt threatens to suspend key peace treaty if Israel pushes into Gaza border town, officials say
Saudi Arabia Warns Of A "Humanitarian Catastrophe" If Israel Moves On Rafah
US University To Shut Qatar Campus Due To "Heightened Mideast Instability"
Facebook and Instagram Ban Iran's Supreme Leader
Defense Technology Showcase Held in Riyadh
Saudi Arabia’s non-oil exports rise 2.5% to $6bn in November 2023: GASTAT
Rolls-Royce Executive Encourages Saudi Women to Tap into Their Inner 'Superhero' for Success in Defense Industry
Saudi Arabia launches National Academy of Vehicles and Cars
Saudi Tourism Minister Reveals Plan for 250,000 New Hotel Rooms by 2030
SAR to more than double eastern network passenger capacity with new trains deal
Saudi Arabia Enhances National Defense with New Partnerships
Saudi Aramco Maintains Arab Light Crude Pricing to Asia for March
NEOM Establishes New York Office to Support Investors
Saudi Wealth Fund Draws in Over $25 Billion Worth of Investments in Three Years, Al-Rumayyan Reveals
The Saudi Kingdom's Ultimatum to Israel: A Win-Win Peace with Saudi Arabia and the Arab World, or a Lose-Lose Continued Occupation and Endless Conflict
Biden condemns anti-Arab hate after WSJ opinion piece calls Dearborn ‘jihad capital’
Turkey Releases Seven Hostages Captured by Pro-Gaza Gunman
Arab Parliament Commends Women's Contributions to Societal Development
British and Hungarian Foreign Ministers visited Lebanese leaders to stress the importance of enacting UN Resolution 1701
Yemen's Houthis Say They Targeted British Merchant Vessel In Red Sea
Donald Trump Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize for 'Historic' Middle East Policy
US lawmakers approve F-16 jet sale to Turkey following NATO expansion support
Saudi Arabia Climbs 25 Places in World Bank's National Statistics Indicator
Tourism Growth in Saudi Arabia Fuels Advancements in the Hospitality Industry," Says Rotana Official
Houthi Rebels Request Departure of UN Staff from Yemen, Including US and UK Personnel, within a Month
Modi Inaugurates Hindu Temple on Site of Demolished Mosque in India
Over 25,000 Deaths in Gaza Amid Israeli Offensive
Escalating Clashes in Gaza as Israel Distributes Leaflets to Assist in Locating Hostages
Turkey's First Astronaut Set to Launch for International Space Station Today
Head of Palestinian Investment Fund Warns More People May Die of Hunger Than War in Gaza
Palestinian Envoy Criticizes UK for Alleged 'Double Standards' in Policies Toward Israel
Morocco to Lead UN Human Rights Council in 2024
Is artificial intelligence the solution to cyber security threats?
Egypt has been identified as the leading military force among Arab nations and ranks 15th globally
The AI Revolution in the Workforce: CEOs at Davos Predict Major Job Cuts in 2024
Iranian Nobel Laureate Narges Mohammadi Receives Additional Prison Sentence
"Gazans Urge Israeli Forces to Target Hamas in Leaked Audio"
Biden States US and UK Airstrikes on Houthis Were a 'Defensive Action
Large Pro-Palestine Rally in London as Gaza Conflict Hits Day 100
South Africa Urges World Court to Halt Israeli Actions in Gaza
×