KEY POINTS
- Increased interest in Bitcoin post-halving will drive prices higher, Yusko predicted
- He noted that BTC prices have "historically" gone up after halving, and he thinks it will have a similar impact this time
- Other industry experts and analysts have expressed high hopes for Bitcoin prices amid the bull run
Amid Bitcoin's uptrend so far in the first three months of 2024, hedge fund manager and CEO of Morgan Creek Capital Management, Mark Yusko, predicted that the world's largest cryptocurrency could hit up to $150,000 by the end of the year.
In particular, Yusko sees more interest in Bitcoin after the halving event in April, wherein rewards to BTC miners are cut in half, reducing the rate at which new Bitcoins are circulated. The prominent hedge fund manager and investor noted that "historically," BTC prices increase post-halving, so one can only expect the world's first decentralized cryptocurrency to likely follow the same pattern.
He explained that the digital coin would probably be "pushed" to $100,000 during the halving event, but due to ordinal fees and inscriptions, Bitcoin's fair value may only hit $75,000. However, things will change after the halving, which takes place only every four years. "Post-halving, you get a lot of interest in the asset, a lot of people FOMO [a phenomenon in investing wherein investors have a fear of missing out on investments with a lot of interest around them] in, and we normally go to about two-times fair value in the cycle," he said.
He went on to explain that in the previous halving cycle, Bitcoin's "fair value was 30 – we got as a high as $68,000, $69,000." He believes the 2024 cycle will probably see the coin's fair value being driven two times more "because there's less leverage."
"That gets us to $150,000," he said, seemingly aligning with several industry experts who've had similar year-end price targets for Bitcoin amid the ongoing bull run. Yusko is the latest investor to have made a bullish prediction of how Bitcoin will fare through the end of the year.
Bitcoin Foundation chair Brock Pierce told International Business Times last week that should the digital currency repeat the same price patterns as it has had in the past, "it's very realistic that Bitcoin will break $100,000 this year."
Research and brokerage firm Bernstein also revised its year-end BTC price prediction from $80,000 to $90,000 due to improvements in market dynamics and "robust network transaction fees this cycle." It sees miners experiencing a "relatively mild" impact from the halving.
Yusko's prediction mirrors that of British banking giant Standard Chartered, which made a significant revision to its end of 2024 Bitcoin price target from $100,000 to $150,000 over "sharper-than-expected price gains year-to-date." It also said it sees a strong possibility that the popular digital coin can hit $250,000 sometime in 2025.
