Bitcoin Forum

Even the skeptics can’t avoid weighing in on bitcoin.

It seems like everyone is coming up with a price forecast these days, with some of the biggest banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. jumping into the action, while speculators to long-time investors are also making their bets.

The consensus is that the biggest cryptocurrency will face some resistance around $4,500 to $4,800 and correct, to then continue rallying. How high? Pantera Capital Management’s Paul Veradittakit, Tom Lee at Fundstrat Global Advisors and John Spallanzani at GFI Group Inc. see it going to $6,000 by year-end, while Ronnie Moas at Standpoint Research says it will keep rising to $7,500 in 2018.

Bitcoin has been on a tear this year, more than tripling in value as it crossed the $4,000 mark and touched a record $4,477 last week. It’s since retreated about 7 percent from the high as investors took profit and assessed whether the rally had gone too far. Growing adoption and institutional investor interest, agreement on a mechanism to speed up transactions and regulatory steps that will help the asset broaden its reach are some of the reasons that explain the gains.

“We’re in a very healthy position right now,” said Veradittakit, vice president of Pantera Capital, which has invested in bitcoin since 2014. “There’s a lot of interest from traders and mainstream finance on the rise of all these new crytpo currencies, but when they first get exposure into the space, they’ll go into bitcoin. It has the most liquidity and biggest brand name.”

Veradittakit said bitcoin will hover around current levels and rally further once the underlying technology is upgraded in November, when the block size in the bitcoin blockchain is set to double to two megabytes, increasing transaction speed. He’s also encouraged by reports from the local exchanges Pantera invests in that cross-border transactions are increasing.

Read more about the bitcoin development dispute

But the road ahead might get rocky. Goldman Sachs technical analyst Sheba Jafari wrote in a note to clients Aug. 13 that bitcoin could erase around 40 percent of its value after reaching $4,827. On a separate note, Goldman Sachs analysts said the space is getting big enough at over $100 billion in market capitalization that it warrants watching.

Spallanzani, chief macro strategist at GFI Group, also predicts a sizeable fall to as low as $3,000 unless it manages to break the $4,500 level it tested last week. But then it should rebound and climb to as high as $10,000 in 2018, he said.

“It will have to retrace a bit more before we have enough power to break through,” Spallanzani said. He recommends buying bitcoin when it’s above $3,800 and selling when its below that level.

Not everyone is so bullish. Roy Sebag, who said he first invested in bitcoin in 2011, said he sold most of his 17,000 bitcoin between May and June because he believes the long-term value will be zero.

“It’s completely devolved from the original promise,” said Sebag, founder and chief executive officer of Goldmoney Inc., which oversees about $2 billion of assets. “Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general are exhibiting a mania, fueled by speculative fervor.”

Amid the frenzy, some analysts have steered clear of making price predictions, while still dipping their toes in bitcoin waters.

Read more on how to get exposure to bitcoin without owning it

Tom Price, a Morgan Stanley equity strategist, said bitcoin compares to gold in that both offer similar benefits as a store of value, such as being fungible, durable, portable, divisible and scarce. Still, a lot of time and trust-building will be needed before it becomes clear whether bitcoin will also undermine demand for the metal, he said.

Cryptocurrencies including bitcoin are still very volatile and thus not particularly safe, but that could change as their value rises and liquidity increases, wrote Bank of America Merrill Lynch strategists Martin Mauro, Cheryl Rowan and Matthew Trapp earlier this month. They score well when it comes to diversification, as their correlation to equities, bonds, commodities, currencies or selected measures of risk is near zero, the strategists said.

More longer term, bitcoin will climb to $25,000 by 2022, Fundstrat’s Lee said, as recent regulatory approval for options trading and settlement implies a “significant rise in institutional holdings” of bitcoin, while he estimates user accounts are likely to rise 50 percent and usage per account to climb 30 percent.

Moas of Standpoint Research said in an Aug. 14 report that bitcoin could rise to $50,000 by 2027 as he expects cryptocurrency users will grow to as high as 100 million users from 10 million today in the next couple of years.

“It looks to me as though we are at the same point in the adoption curve as we were in 1995” with the Internet, Moas wrote. “Cryptocurrency is becoming more widely accepted by the day.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-21/bitcoin-analysts-compete-for-highest-forecast-as-profile-grows

Thirty seven trillion gazillion! Do I win?

If the price happens to reach that level, I will send you exactly 21 satoshis for the effort. Send me a PM in case I don't remember anymore. :D

OP -- I somewhat understand that now Bitcoin is going up big time, and is an extremely hot item in most of the mainstream media channels, that they try to analyze the market and come up with predictions as result. What I however can't seem to understand, is why people suddenly start to consider themselves an expert. Like seriously, basically every prediction from previously unknown people, is coming from whatever type of expert. Funny thing is that these "experts" quite often end up being way off with their nonsensical predictions and incorrect analysis. The only thing they are doing is making themselves look like a dumbo.

The way I understand, bitcoin is a mark of value to all altcoins when comes to cryptocurrencies, but the rise of bitcoin won´t be faster because the altcoin market is getting larger by the day, and splitting the market share, otherwise, bitcoin would be spiking the 5 digits already.

Just wow. This banks are really hard on predicting the price of bitcoin. LOL. Its a competition now on who ever gets the correct prediction on the next coming months or even years. I'll try to bookmark this to see who gets my vote. LOL.

With that said, it really hard not to really take note on what's going on the crypto industry right now. Early adopters, Old investors, New investors and even countries are really on this market specially bitcoin. One thing I noticed though, they all predict that bitcoin will fall dramatically before surging ahead to a levels we haven't seen before. I guess I have to continue and buy portion by portion and hope that those analyst will hit their predictions on the target.  :)

>:(

Well, I'm sticking by my well-reasoned prediction

(:D)

Wow...reading all those positive predictions as to how far Bitcoin will climb in the next few days, next week, next month, before the year ends and in the next year is leaving me a little bit dizzy. Not that am complaining really because I love all of these analysis and predictions.

On the other hand to make the story fair enough, there are also some who are predicting that Bitcoin can be liken to the tulip bulb mania and it will really pop! And then the party can be over! Well, is Bitcoin really comparable to the tulip? You be my guess.

The ultimate fact is most of them are quite optimistic of future price and that helps a lot in driving the price uptrend in a speculative market as that of Bitcoin. These positive interpretation of Bitcoin future by some really big financial institutions will ultimately gonna attract more investors and hence will boost the price.