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McAfee Admits 2020 Bitcoin Million Dollar Price Prediction Was a Ruse

John McAfee, creator of the McAfee cybersecurity company has finally admitted that his famous 2017 million dollar Bitcoin price prediction was just a ruse to attract new users.

Following Bitcoin’s surging bull run in 2017, which brought most of the cryptomarket along for the ride, Mcafee famously tweeted that he would stake his ‘manhood’ on a bet that Bitcoin would reach $1 million by the end of 2020. Mixed Messages

During the 2017 period following the crypto rush, it was not uncommon for outlandish predictions and many believed McAfee was joking, but over the years he has continued to reiterate his prediction. At the end of September 2019 in an interview with Forbes, he even explained his main rationale for the incredibly high value prediction citing Bitcoin’s scarcity. McAfee argued that as demand increases for Bitcoin, there won’t be enough to satisfy the market at lower price points and will consequently cause the asset to surge in price. He said, “There are only 21 million bitcoins. Seven million of which have been lost forever, and then, if Satoshi is dead, add a few more million.”

A few weeks later, McAfee would double down on this prediction. In an interview with AIBCSummit, he passionately expressed that if Bitcoin has not reached $2 million by the end of 2020 it would mean that mathematics itself is a “flawed disappointment”

The Admission

On Jan. 5, McAfee posted the tweet below admitting that his bet was all just a ruse to attract new users, and his “dickline” and extreme price prediction was simply to encite the mass media coverage that his tweets have ultimately attracted in the space.

Not only did he admit the deception but he went on to called Bitcoin an “ancient technology” and compared Bitcoin to early model cars explaining that while they worked better vehicles now exist. He cited newer features of Ethereum and Monero such as privacy, smart contracts and Dapps, which the Bitcoin blockchain simply doesn’t feature.

Image via Shutterstock

Pantera Capital CEO Dan Morehead Predicts Bitcoin Price Rebound Despite Slow Economic Recovery

Several crypto analysts and experts are bullish on the Bitcoin price after the halving event, which is expected to occur in a few days. Pantera Capital CEO and founder Dan Morehead commented on such matters. In an April 30 letter to investors, Morehead examined the year-to-date performance of Bitcoin before the May 12 halving in comparison to venture capital, oil, and gold. He has predicted that there is more than a 50-50 chance that Bitcoin will climb up massively and will peak over $100,000 in August 2021.

Pantera Capital is a San Francisco-based cryptocurrency and blockchain hedge fund.

The Current Global Recession Fuels Bitcoin Boom

In his letter addressed to investors, the Pantera Capital founder examined the current distressing and confusing time across markets. He said that with the current recession, a V-shaped recovery for the world’s economy is unlikely. He wrote the letter, referring to a more rapid recovery in the economy. He mentioned that school closings could make it difficult for Americans with children to get back to work even if retailers, restaurants, and stores reopen. He said that many school districts are not slated to reopen their door until September. Morehead’s conclusion is that the economy would pick up until schools reopen.

The Pantera Capital CEO also talked about other impediments to economic recovery like a decline in the number of air or sea travels, a large number of restaurants closing permanently, oil and stock markets adversely affected, and other behavioral changes tied to the coronavirus crisis.

According to Morehead, Bitcoin’s slow rebound and gains in the broader markets could push investors into the crypto market. He stated that Bitcoin has already outperformed other traditional assets like oil, stock, and real estate.

In the letter, the Pantera CEO revealed that the company’s Bitcoin Fund has been extremely doing well on getting new subscriptions as investors are seeking new opportunities. He said that people are aware that they are in the downward swing of a U-shaped recovery for the economy. As a result, people are thinking of alternative assets. Of course, they are thinking Bitcoin could potentially perform much better than the stock market.

Morehead stated that a sluggish market is a key component, which could play into a further appreciation of Bitcoin.

He revealed that the upcoming halving would have an effect on the price of Bitcoin and the general cryptocurrency market. According to him, based on the historical data, the halving has been a bullish catalyst. He said: “If the new supply of Bitcoin is cut in half, all else being equal, the price should rise.”

Post-Halving Prediction

Currently, crypto experts are still divided on whether the Bitcoin price will fall or rise after the halving in May. There is no common consensus within the Bitcoin community regarding whether Bitcoin halving is already priced in or whether there would be a significant price movement. Some experts believe that the Bitcoin price will not indicate any significant movement, and the Bitcoin halving is already priced in.

However, a majority of experts believe that halving would have a significant effect, and the cryptocurrency could reach a new all-time high towards the end of the year. They argue that Bitcoin’s fundamentals seem promising and expect Bitcoin price to reach $20,000 by the end of the year as the impact of the halving and the further development of the technology would bring the cryptocurrency further into the mainstream. Fear of missing out may influence several investors to enter the market just before the halving. Consequently, that fresh capital could push Bitcoin price above $20,000 by the end of the year. Overall, the opinions indicate that there are both bearish and bullish views showing that the halving could affect the Bitcoin price significantly. But there are more bullish opinions projecting a rising price of Bitcoin.

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Tesla Stock and Bitcoin Rebound with S&P 500, But Bitcoin Price and Crypto Crash Still Predicted

Tesla and Bitcoin’s price have both made significant recoveries over the last 24 hours, however, our chart analysis indicates that a Bitcoin and crypto price crash is still a very real possibility for September.

Tesla’s price has surged over 10% following a 21% plunge on Wednesday. Meanwhile Bitcoin has also made a price recovery of nearly 5% amid the crypto market downtrend—is the simultaneous recovery of BTC and Tesla a coincidence or is there a connection?

Tesla Stock Rebounds, BTC Surges

On Sept 9, the Tesla price dropped by 21% in what investors deemed a terrible trading day, with the tech giant suffering its biggest drop yet. The sudden drop saw Tesla stock lose around 33.7% of its 2020 gains, falling from grace from a high of $498.32 in the past week. The drop also saw Elon Musk’s personal net worth fall by $16.3 billion.

Later that day, Tesla made a recovery, surging 10.92%. Bitcoin which had fallen into the crypto market downtrend and appeared to be consolidating at around $10,000 also surged 5% through the resistance point.

According to reports, there were clues that the Tesla stock would undergo a massive sell-off. One of the indicators was when investment management firm Baillie Gifford, a long-time shareholder of Tesla stock, sold its shares and cashed out its gains at the same time as the electric car and battery maker’s stock hit a record high.

An obvious reason the Tesla price plunge was that the entire United States stock market has been correcting on a downtrend.

Source: Skew.com

The downward trend and recovery of the overall stock market is also likely a factor for the Bitcoin prices as on data from Skew shows the 1-month correlation between Bitcoin and the S&P 500 has increased significantly from 18% to over 50%.

Tesla’s S&P 500 ExclusionAccording to Baird analyst, Ben Kallo, Tesla’s stock most likely fell as many investors were anticipating that Tesla’s stock would be included in the latest S&P 500 release. The analyst explains that when the anticipated Tesla inclusion did not occur, it was a catalyst for a massive investor sell off. The popular analyst believes the “shares were reflecting expectations for substantial passive inflows.”

Kallo said:

“We think the stock could be under pressure following the delay of S&P 500 inclusion, particularly from investors who bought ahead of the announcement expecting an opportunity to sell to passive funds.”

The connection between the Tesla stock and BTC price appears to be mainly due to Bitcoin’s increased correlation with the S&P 500. If anything, the behavior of Bitcoin is a stark reminder that all financial markets remain fragile in the COVID pandemic market climate and BTC is still being liquidated by investors during vulnerable periods similar to tech stocks and other risk-on assets.

Bitcoin Price Still Likely to Crash in September

Our own analysis, however, indicates that despite Bitcoin recent sure, the BTC price is due to crash to around the $8,000 mark in the coming weeks in a major correction, before continuing on its macro bull trend.

Source: Trading View

The Bitcoin price surged through to around $10,418 before correcting to around the $10,300 mark. As displayed above in the 1-hour chart, the Bitcoin price continues to move within the horizontal channel, consolidating around the $10,000 resistance—which it has done since its price crashed on Sept 2 and 3. Each time BTC has touched the top of this horizontal channel it drops, which is not a good indication that Bitcoin will move in am upward direction.

Source: Trading View

The Bitcoin price went up to challenge the 5-day MA, but 5-day MA is still acting as a strong resistance level. Also, the BTC price’s interactions with the 90-day MA indicate this line has become a strong resistance, leading the Bitcoin price to fluctuate below the 90-day MA more frequently.

As reported by Blockchain.News, US-based crypto exchange Kraken’s August 2020 volatility the report also indicates that Bitcoin is due for a very negative performance in September that could see the pioneer crypto’s price crash before returning to a state of extreme volatility.

Bitcoin Will Rise to Over $1 Trillion In Next Ten Years, Tesla Investor’s BTC Value Prediction

Bitcoin has had a rollercoaster year amid the COVID-19 pandemic market disruption but has ultimately persevered adding over 40% to its price and now exceeds $200 billion in market capitalization.

The Bitcoin price sat at around $7,000 per Bitcoin token at the beginning of 2020, before crashing to under $4,000 on Black Thursday in March. The Bitcoin price has since rebounded to and sits at around $10,700 per coin at the time of writing.

This year, there has been a marked increase of institutional interest in Bitcoin and maturity in the cryptocurrency market, particularly on Bitcoin’s status as a store of wealth in a time of economic uncertainty.

A prominent investor who correctly predicted the exponential growth of Tesla this year, has now reported that they expect Bitcoin’s market capitalization to exceed $1 trillion and could go as high as $5 trillion during over the course of the next decade.

As reported by Forbes on Oct 4, Ark Invest’s Director of Research Yassine Elmandjra recently released a report to persuade investor’s to stop ignoring Bitcoin’s potential as an asset.

Elmandjra wrote:

“Bitcoin offers one of the most compelling risk-reward profiles among assets, as our analysis suggests it should scale from roughly $200 billion today to $1-5 trillion network capitalization during the next five to ten years.”

Ark Invest previously correctly guided its investors towards investment in electric-car and tech development firm Tesla, a company whose price has increased over 400% this year alone, despite the market disruptions.

Bitcoin: The Last Decade and Beyond

Ark reportedly remains exceptionally optimistic on the Bitcoin price in the decade to come, and it only takes a short look back over the last decade to understand this sentiment.

Bitcoin is by far the highest performing asset of the last ten years, its price increasing from less than a dollar to it all-time-high of $20,000 per Bitcoin token by the end of 2017 before a slight implosion of the crypto market, largely due to bad actors and a run of cash-grabbing initial coin offerings as the crypto market was center stage at this time.

Elmandjra wrote in the Ark report:

“Our analysis suggests Bitcoin is early on its path to monetization, with substantial appreciation potential […] In our view, bitcoin’s $200 billion market capitalization—or network value—will scale more than an order of magnitude to the trillions during the next decade.”

Elmandrja also warned that a number of risks still exist that could completely derail Bitcoin’s coming bull run. While the institutional investment into Bitcoin is encouraging for crypto investors, the analyst says over-institutionalization could destroy Bitcoin’s value proposition and could see a “few trusted parties dominating transactions.”

MicroStrategy acquires $425M worth of BTC

The Chief Executive Officer of the multibillion-dollar business intelligence firm MicroStrategy recently discussed the subject of Bitcoin (BTC), gold, and alternative asset classes. He explained that with the Federal Reserve’s plans to continue pushing inflation above 2%, he felt as if MicroStrategy’s investments were sitting on “a $500 million melting ice cube,” with the depreciation of the US dollar.

This drove him to secure MicroStrategy’s treasury reserve by purchasing $425 million worth of Bitcoin. The bold move made headlines everywhere as MicroStrategy is the first public company to invest most of its reserve monetary supply in BTC.

Mobius Capital Partners CEO Says Trying to Predict Bitcoin Price is "Loser's Game"

In an interview with Financial News media outlets, Mark Mobius, emerging markets asset manager and founder and CEO of Mobius Capital Partners, said that it makes no sense trying to analyze and predict the future price of Bitcoin because the cryptocurrency does not follow any pattern.

CEO of Mobius Capital Partners, Mark Mobius said:

“Trying to predict the price of Bitcoin is a loser’s game.”

Mobius stated that speculating on movements of Bitcoin’s price is similar to playing a lottery or gambling. He mentioned there is no reliable information that anyone can use to predict the cryptocurrency’s next move. He said:

“[Its rise is a] casino operation based on all sorts of rumors and speculation.”

Mobius’ observation comes at a time when Bitcoin was on the verge of reaching a record high of $20,000 earlier this week, but the cryptocurrency’s sharp rise was cut short after its price fell by almost 11% on November 26 – one of the biggest declines since March.

It is also a time when heavyweight investors are keen on making some predictions that the price could rise higher toward the end of the year, saying that the crypto asset is now in bubble territory.

However, Mobius pointed out that analyses and predictions are contradictory because there is no reliable way of predicting Bitcoin pricing or its movements. The emerging markets manager claims that investing in cryptocurrencies could be dangerously close to gambling.

While several big names in the investment landscape like billionaire investor Stanly Druckenmiller, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor have all praised Bitcoin in recent months, Mobius has been a vocal critic of the cryptocurrency. In 2019, Mobius raised concerns about blockchain saying that the technology could be broken into, arguing that anything that is created by human beings can be broken into. However, the only hope he would like to see and be interested in the crypto industry is a cryptocurrency backed by gold.

Whenever the Bitcoin price declines, its common for the voices of crypto critics to resonate even louder. Nouriel Roubini and Peter Schiff are some of the famous Bitcoin critics who have issued some warnings just like Mobius. Depsite the dissent on Bitcoin, the crypto market remains bullish and BTC has risen by 4.9% in the last 24 hours, the Bitcoin price is $17,819 at time of writing according to CoinMarketCap.

Crypto Price Prediction as A Market Literacy Tool

Any kind of forecast or prediction on the movement of cryptocurrency prices is important for educational and informative purposes. However, there is no analyst or software that has been able to consistently predict market movement correctly . If someone could accurately predict the price of Bitcoin, then the crypto market would definitely lose much of its purpose. But does not imply that price prediction is useless. Predictions are usually vital guidelines that provide clues and the general feeling of traders and investors and even influence the market for short periods.

4 Reasons Why Bitcoin Investors Should HODL Despite BTC Price Drop Below $18K

The Bitcoin price has slipped under $18,000 yet again as on-chain analytics reveal BTC miners are creating huge selling pressure—but don’t panic, here are four expert BTC price predictions and reasons to keep HODLers holding on to their crypto in the months ahead.

The price of the BTC cryptocurrency is currently $17,850, and the leading crypto asset dropping has pulled altcoins like Ethereum and XRP down with it.

The immediate short-term Bitcoin price outlook does not look bullish. Willy Woo, a leading on-chain analyst, recently tweeted that he thinks there is a good likelihood there is consolidation or further losses in the weeks ahead:

“Bitcoin on-chain structure saying to bulls “thou shall not pass”, not without a reset. A reset means many weeks of sideways or a decent bearish dip. Will we get a dip? There’s no impulse of coin movements that’s strongly bearish just yet. Waiting game.”

Popular Bitcoin investor and influencer, Tone Vays had also previously predicted a price pullback late last month and if his analysis is correct we could be in for a far steeper price correction before the crypto bull run resumes:

“I’m expecting either significant consolidation or most likely a pullback to the $14,000 to $15,000 area over the next few months […] Then, it’ll take another month or two to get back to $20,000, and I am expecting the break of $20,000 around the end of Q1 of next year, so maybe March or April is when I’m expecting the break of the $20,000 area, and then we go up quickly.”

While these price corrections occur, it’s important for HODLers (crypto investors who buy and hold their positions regardless of price) to remember that the macro trend for the crypto remains bullish and here’s four price prediction from leading experts and analysts for the months and years to come—while they range from $40K to $500k per Bitcoin, all are worth the wait.

Rafael Schultze-Kraft, Glassnode CTO Predicts 10X

Our first major piece of good news for HODLers came only yesterday, when the CTO of crypto market data aggregator Glassnode, Rafael Schultze-Kraft posted an “insanely bullish” price prediction for Bitcoin on Twitter, indicating through technical analysis that the crypto’s price is set to increase by more than 10 fold.

For each of the indicators, Schultze-Kraft measured the gains produced when the metric moved from a similar position in 2017 until it posted an all-time high later that year. He then multiplied Bitcoin’s current price by the same percentage increase.

Schultze-Kraft wrote:

“Where are we in the #Bitcoin market cycle? A look at some of the most important on-chain market indicators. TLDR: Insanely bullish, most metrics are far from the top. If things develop anything like 2017, we could see more than 10x $BTC from here.”

Through the Glassnode analysis, Schulze-Kraft’s makes several BTC price predictions each one of them showing Bitcoin breaking into six-figures, and all except for one of them indicates that BTC price will soon exceed $200,000.

Mike McGlone, Bloomberg Intelligence Predicts 3X in 2021

The second major reason for BTC investors to cheer up is the latest report from Bloomberg Intelligence. Led by Mike McGlone, the crypto analysts report that history suggests it is only a matter of time before Bitcoin reaches a market cap of $1 trillion, which would bring the BTC price to $55,000 per coin, and they argue that global demand supports the cryptocurrency rising throughout next year to reach that level by 2022.

According to the Bloomberg Crypto Outlook – December 2020 edition, Bitcoin will continue to advance in price into 2021 with “macroeconomic, technical and demand vs. supply indicators supportive of $50,000 target resistance, implying about a $1 trillion market cap.”

The analysts predict that BTC’s price should be around $40,000 in 2021 followed by around $55,000 in 2022 when Bitcoin inevitably breaks the $50,000 resistance.

The Bloomberg analysts believe that for Bitcoin, the $10,000 mark has now been flipped to become a critical support level after serving as the crypto’s resistance mark since 2017. The report argues that should the market experience another crash as occurred in March 2020, $10,000 would be likely be Bitcoin’s floor.

Winklevoss Twins Predict BTC will 25X

The third reason to hold on to your BTC comes from Bitcoin billionaires Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss who recently predicted on CNBC that the Bitcoin price will surge to $500,000 and replace gold as a store of value with a $9 trillion market cap by 2030.

Even at current prices, the Gemini founders think BTC remains a buy as it will only boom in the long run. Tyler Winklevoss said:

“So at $18,000 bitcoin, it’s a hold or at least if you don’t have any, it’s a buy opportunity because we think there’s a 25x from here.”

Tyler Winklevoss doubled down on this prediction when US insurance giant MassMutual bought up $100 million in BTC to diversify its investment portfolio yesterday. Winklevoss tweeted earlier today:

“And another domino falls on the yellow brick road to #Bitcoin being worth $500k per bitcoin. Who’s next?”

Unlike 2017 this Time it’s Institutional Investors backing BTC

The fourth reason to hold on is to recognize that this Bitcoin bull run is far removed from the driving forces of the 2017 crypto bubble.

According to Chainalysis, the investments currently backing Bitcoin are significantly different than in 2017 when BTC was still a relatively unchartered territory and backed by retail investors, who purchased smaller amounts of BTC.

This year, sizeable Bitcoin purchases have been made by institutional investors looking to secure and diversify their treasury reserves, notably Square, MicroStrategy, Stone Ridge, to name a few. Per Chainalysis:

“2020 is the year institutional dollars began flowing into Bitcoin. From high-profile investors like hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones, who compared buying Bitcoin to investing early in Apple or Google, to corporations like Square, which invested $50 million or 1% of its total assets in Bitcoin, mainstream companies, and financial institutions are turning to Bitcoin.”

The crypto game is changing, the market is maturing and technology remains nascent. While volatility in Bitcoin is reportedly subsiding, price corrections and setbacks are inevitable—but with the expert prediction and analysis above, BTC investors have at least four reasons to hold on to their crypto for dear life.

Token Metrics CEO: Bitcoin Price Increase to $26k likely, $32k Possible, and $40k Outlandish

Bitcoin’s market rise today is historic, with the price currently sitting at over $21,770 and looks poised for a further break out—but where will the BTC price be in the next few months?

According to Ian Balina, the Founder and CEO of Token Metrics, an AI-driven digital asset research company and his team, the next few months into 2021 should be rather bullish with his team making several predictions.

Balina commented on the Bitcoin price rally to Blockchain.News in an email:

“This is a historical day for bitcoin. Bitcoin has reached a new all-time high without receiving much media attention compared to 2017 according to Google trends. As a result, the media and retail are about to return to bitcoin and find a much more mature and promising cryptocurrency. Bitcoin could reach $50K within the next few years or even higher. We’re now officially in uncharted territory.”

Where will this Bull Run Rest?

The Token Metrics team supplied two charts indicating where the Bitcoin price could go from here. At the time we received the charts, Bitcoin had only broken as far as $20,600.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s market cap has already exceeded $400 Billion dollars according to CoinMarketCap, but the Token Metrics team show projections as high as $420 billion by early 2021.

In terms of the Bitcoin Price, the Token Metrics team predicted the possible BTC upside targets. The team stress that $26k seems the most likely pricepoint for the firs month of 2021 but $32k being possible. The Bitcoin price exceeding $40k remains an outlandish scenario.

Industry expert and CTO of Bitfinex Paolo Ardoino also furnished Blockchain.News with his opinion on the current state of Bitcoin and where it is headed. He said:

“Bitcoin’s ascent above US$20,000 is yet another milestone in what has been an epic year[…]But the main story is not about speculation or trading. Bitcoin represents a monumental technological shift, the consequences of which are only just beginning to be seen. Critics should take heed of the quiet dedication of those building layers upon this technology that will change the very nature of money by the end of this decade.”

Will Bitcoin’s Price Touch $100,000 by End of 2021?

Bitcoin has exploded over the last four months and has been on a rally that few could have seen coming. The cryptocurrency was trading at $10,741 on October 1, $13,891 on November 1 and $19,382 on December 1. Bitcoin’s price took a week to consolidate just before Christmas where it was created a base at $22,000 levels. After that, it took off into the stratosphere and in 15 days zoomed up to $41,355 on January 9!

The rally won’t stop

Bitcoin surged 300% in 2020 and analysts believe that it is entirely possible for bitcoin to repeat the feat in 2021. However, there are questions around its valuation and sustainability.

On January 5, 2021, leading investment bank JP Morgan put out a note saying that while the cryptocurrency could hit $100,000, even going as high as $146,000, it would likely be unsustainable. The note said, “While we cannot exclude the possibility that the current speculative mania will propagate further, pushing the bitcoin price up towards the consensus region of between $50k – $100k, we believe that such price levels would prove unsustainable,” the note said.

Bitcoin bulls, however, are operating on a different plane. They believe that $100,000 will just be another box to tick on the route to an even higher price. The bitcoin rally, according to them, will power on through the year. Citibank thinks the cryptocurrency could cross $300,000.

“The whole existence of bitcoin has been characterised by unthinkable rallies followed by painful corrections, the type of pattern that sustains a long term trend,” Citibank’s Tom Fitzpatrick, wrote in a note, titled Bitcoin: 21st Century Gold, to institutional clients that were leaked on Twitter.

He said that the Bitcoin rally could potentially peak in December 2021, and one bitcoin could be worth as much as $318,000. “Time will tell if we end up seeing such lofty levels but the backdrop and the price action we are looking at clearly suggest the potential for a major move higher nonetheless in the next 12-24 months,” he said.

Bitcoin vs. gold

Bitcoin reaching the predicted levels is dependent on institutional investors adopting it as an alternative hedge to gold. As of January 8, the yellow metal had a market capitalization of $10.6 trillion while bitcoin had a market capitalization of $708 billion. That’s around 6.8% of gold. There are only 21 million bitcoins in the world and this makes the cryptocurrency scarcer than gold.

Grayscale had run a campaign in late 2019 called ‘Drop Gold’ as it tried to impress investors with the potential of cryptocurrencies. It looks like it succeeded in 2020. Investors, especially millennials, have been viewing bitcoin as a hedge against inflation and an alternative to gold and the depreciating dollar.

The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust has given a return of 375% in the last 12 months. According to Michael Sonnenshein, a managing director at Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, the firm has raised over a billion dollars in the third quarter of 2020 and he remains bullish on this momentum over the long-term as well.

The Trust has also seen an outflow of $2 billion in the last two months while gold ETFs have seen an outflow of over $7 billion, according to the note by J.P. Morgan on January 5.

A Financial Times report on November 20, 2020, said that the successful development and rollout of vaccines threaten to kill the two-year rally in gold, and it expects the price of the yellow metal to fall to $1,550 an ounce in 2021. Visit Gold Eagle for more gold price forecasts.

Bitcoin supply cut in half

While everyone is going on and on about qualities in bitcoin that make it such a great investment, there could be a simpler reason for the rally. People get bitcoin by mining them. There are a set of mathematical puzzles that come out every 10 minutes. These puzzles are locks that can validate blocks of transactions on the network. The first person to open these locks (i.e. solve the math algorithms) is rewarded with bitcoins.

When Satoshi Nakamoto (creator of bitcoins) recorded the first block on the bitcoin blockchain in January 2009, he received 50 bitcoins. Bitcoin technology was created to halve rewards after every 210,000 blocks. The technology had its third halving on May 11, 2020, and that means bitcoin miners receive 6.25 bitcoins for every recorded transaction.

This third halving severely restricted the supply of bitcoins and laid the foundation of the current rally. Hedge fund Pantera Capital told its investors that fintech firms have been raking in a majority of the new bitcoins in 2020. The fund estimated that Square’s clients have accounted for 40% of the bitcoins in the last two years while PayPal’s new offering in October 2020 accounted for 70% of the new bitcoins.

Large investors like Stanley Druckenmiller, founder of hedge fund Duquesne Capital, and Rick Rieder, BlackRock chief investment officer of global fixed income, have been talking up bitcoin in 2020.

When you take a look at all these three factors, $100,000 doesn’t seem like an illusion anymore.

Institutional Demand Can’t Keep Bitcoin Above $30K Says Guggenheim’s Minerd

Institutional investment in Bitcoin is not enough on its own to justify Bitcoin’s price levels said Guggenheim CIO Scott Minerd who predicts BTC will trend down below the $30K level.

Despite reports of the surging institutional demand for Bitcoin, Guggenheim’s Scott Minerd says these investors are not enough to keep the BTC price firmly above the $30,000 level.

In an interview with Bloomberg on Jan. 28, Miners said:

“Right now, the reality of the institutional demand that would support a US$35,000 price or even a US$30,000 price is just not there […] I don’t think the investor base is big enough and deep enough right now to support this kind of valuation.”

Minerd who manages over $310 billion in assets confirmed that he thinks Bitcoin is still a viable asset class in the long run. After making a huge prediction that BTC be worth $400,000 per coin in Dec.2020—Minerd said a month later on Jan. 20 that he felt that Bitcoin may have temporarily peaked and could retrace to US$20,000.

Institutional adoption has been the main narrative behind Bitcoin’s incredible price rally throughout 2020, and BTC recorded and all-time high of almost US$42,000 at the start of the year before a steady fall back to near US$31,000.

Recently institutional giant Blackrock became the latest corporate behemoth to buy into the crypto and companies like MicroStategy and Square and have thrown huge amounts of cash into Bitcoin for their corporate treasuries.

Cryptocurrencies are not the only speculative area of the market that Minerd has his eye on, saying that the frothiness surrounding heavily shorted companies like GameStop Corp. will continue through the end of the first quarter.

Minerd said:

“It’s not uncommon to see squeezes like this […] “Now that we have all these small investors in the market and they see this kind of momentum trade, they see the opportunity to make money and this is exactly the sort of frothiness that you would expect as you start to approach a market pop.”

He added:

“While there’s frothiness, while valuations are getting extended, these are poor timing tools […] So, this could go on for a quite awhile.”

Despite the current consolidation in the Bitcoin market, SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci believes that it is the new age of micro investors. Retail traders are now increasingly shunning Wall Street and triggering bull runs in stocks like GameStop Inc., and this is positive for Bitcoin (BTC).

Furthermore, Crypto exchange Luno and brokerage OSL believes that Bitcoin is still in the right trajectory and set to hit $50,000 in the long term. As hedges against inflation continue to be sought out by investors, Bitcoin’s neck-to-neck battle with gold as the better safe-haven asset continues.

The price of Bitcoin could receive a boost as the Federal Reserve (Fed) officials voted at the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on Wednesday to maintain federal fund rates near 0% and continue $120 billion per month in bond purchases while the economy heals. This would allow for similar market condition that aided Bitcoin’s parabolic bull run in 2020 to continue.

A further boost to Bitcoin’s price as data reveals that 100,000 BTC options are scheduled to expire on crypto exchange Deribit today, a bullish signal according to analysts.

Bitcoin price is currently trading at around $31,333 up from an intra-day low of $29,376 according to CoinMarketCap.

ChatGPT Predicts Solana SOL Price Could Reach $30 Again by the End of 2023

We leveraged our partner’s ChatGPT and AI machine learning technologies to predict Solana’s future, identifying potential trends for its native SOL token. At present, SOL is trading at less than a tenth of its all-time high of $260, suggesting it may be both oversold and undervalued. This stands in contrast to other major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple (XRP), BNB, and LINK, which are trading at levels exceeding 1/10 of their respective record highs. To arrive at this prediction, we employed a multi-faceted approach that includes on-chain analysis, an examination of regulatory challenges, and an assessment of Solana’s core advantages.

Regulatory Hurdles and Market Dynamics

In June 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged both Coinbase and Binance, along with Binance CEO Zhao Changpeng. The SEC identified 13 crypto tokens as securities, including Solana (SOL), Binance’s BNB token, the exchange’s stablecoin BUSD, Cardano (ADA), Polygon (MATIC), Filecoin (FIL), Cosmos Hub (ATOM), The Sandbox (SAND), Decentraland (MANA), Algorand (ALGO), Axie Infinity (AXS), and COTI (COTI). This development has added another layer of complexity to the regulatory landscape surrounding cryptocurrencies, including Solana.

Although Ripple’s XRP, another token classified as a security by the SEC, won a partial victory in July 2023, the implications for other tokens like Solana remain uncertain. The Ripple victory led to a 100% surge in XRP’s price, but the long-term impact of this legal outcome is still unclear.

At the time of writing, Solana (SOL) was trading at $19.4. The cryptocurrency experienced a 30% price surge on July 13, following Ripple (XRP) securing a partial legal victory against the SEC. However, the rally was short-lived, raising questions about the asset’s long-term stability.

For Solana, its founders have expressed concerns about the SEC’s classification of SOL as a security but have not taken any legal action against the claims. The SEC’s judgment implies that all tokens defined as securities can hardly be traded or used within the jurisdiction of the United States.

Solana’s Position in the Market

Solana is a blockchain platform designed to facilitate decentralized finance (DeFi) and decentralized app (DApp) creation. Founded in 2020 by Anatoly Yakovenko, the platform is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Solana employs a unique hybrid consensus model, combining proof-of-history (PoH) with proof-of-stake (PoS), aiming to offer both scalability and security. With a total supply of 489 million SOL tokens, approximately 260 million are currently in circulation. The platform has garnered attention for its focus on scalability and its potential to make DeFi accessible on a larger scale.

Solana has been touted as an “Ethereum killer,” a term that has both intrigued and concerned investors. The platform’s high throughput and low transaction costs make it a formidable competitor to Ethereum. Even Ethereum’s founder, Vitalik Buterin, has shown admiration for the Solana protocol.

Solana excels in the NFT market, attracting numerous projects that issue their NFTs on its platform due to its superior performance and cost-effectiveness. Capable of processing 65,000 transactions per second, Solana offers significantly lower fees compared to Ethereum. This positions Solana as a strong contender to potentially replace Ethereum in the NFT space.

Oversold and Undervalued Compared to Market Peers

Solana’s SOL token is currently trading at less than 1/10 of its record high of $260, signaling that it may be oversold and undervalued, especially when compared to other popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple (XRP), BNB, and LINK, which are trading at prices higher than 1/10 of their respective record highs. This significant price discrepancy could indicate a potential upside for Solana, especially given its strong performance metrics and growing prominence in the NFT market. Investors may view this as an opportunity for entry, considering Solana’s technological advantages and its potential to challenge Ethereum in the NFT space.

ChatGPT’s Take on Solana

ChatGPT, a conversational AI developed by OpenAI, was queried about Solana’s future prospects. While the chatbot is not a financial advisor, it provided some insights based on the given on-chain metrics and market data. According to ChatGPT, Solana could potentially reach a price of $30 in 2023. The chatbot cited the platform’s fast transaction speeds and low fees as contributing factors to its optimistic outlook.

Conclusion

While ChatGPT’s prediction offers a somewhat optimistic outlook for Solana, it is essential for investors to conduct their own research. AI-generated insights can be valuable but should not replace professional financial advice. The crypto market is highly volatile, and external factors like regulatory actions can significantly influence an asset’s price.

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