Bitcoin and cryptocurrency prices have recovered in recent weeks, climbing from February lows even as the crash triggers a serious Coinbase warning.
The bitcoin price has broken back above $40,000 per bitcoin as traders welcome the Federal Reserve's steady approach to raising rates and despite the looming threat of increased regulation. Ethereum, BNB, XRP, solana, cardano have also rallied, with recent challengers Terra's luna and avalanche making outsized gains.
Now, one veteran commodities investor turned bitcoin bull has predicted the bitcoin price could soar to $200,000 in just five years—pointing to a "compounding effect" that could drive momentum.
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"It's hard to know where bitcoin's price will be at, say, the end of the year," Greg Beard, a superstar energy investor who made a name for himself buying and selling oil and gas companies at Apollo Global Management, told Fortune. "But if you're a fundamental-style investor that believes in bitcoin as a store of value, it should be worth multiples of today's price in five years, I'd say at least five times."
Beard's bitcoin price prediction puts bitcoin at $200,000 by the spring of 2027 and he expects interest in crypto to snowball as inflation continues to erode the U.S. dollar and other traditional currencies. "The better bitcoin does, the more interest it will generate," said Beard, who now runs Pennsylvania-based Stronghold Digital Mining along with energy industry veteran Bill Spence. "We'll see a compounding effect."
Interest in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies like ethereum, BNB, XRP, solana and cardano has surged over the last few months as inflation fears engulf investors. In the U.S. prices have increased by 7.9% in the year through February—the highest rate of inflation in 40 years.
However, Beard's bitcoin price prediction requires bitcoin to break out of its current niche.
"For [bitcoin's] price to take off [it] needs to graduate from its strong correlation to the Cathie Wood crowd and high-priced, high-tech equities," said Beard. Bitcoin's price has moved in tandem with technology stocks over the last two years as lockdowns and Covid stimulus measures pushed up prices.
Last month, Cathie Wood's Ark Invest predicted the bitcoin price could exceed $1 million by 2030—with ethereum's market capitalization potentially topping $20 trillion.
"We believe bitcoin is the most profound application of public blockchains, the foundation of 'self-sovereign' digital money," Ark Invest analyst Yassine Elmandjra wrote in the company's 2022 outlook report, arguing technological advancements such as the network's Taproot upgrade and the second-layer Lightning Network could help bitcoin scale.
