Bitcoin (BTC) has slumped back to $95,000 after coming within a few hundred dollars of passing the symbolic $100,000 price level. But the largest cryptocurrency is only catching its breath before surging to newer heights, according to investment management firm ARK Invest.
“We’re more or less anticipating $104,000 to $124,000 price targets by end of year,” David Puell, one of the firm’s research associates, told CoinDesk in an interview. “With the caveat that it’s not a recommendation, but so far, price action has kept up to that projection quite nicely.”
Puell’s calculus is based on bitcoin’s seasonality — a term referring to the ways the asset has behaved in various stages of previous bull markets — as well as on-chain metrics. In Puell’s view, cycles are very much still at play until any strong evidence of the contrary, meaning that he eventually expects a top to form and for bitcoin to experience another serious pullback like in 2022.
“I would classify the current market environment as a sort of middle of the bull,” Puell said. “If you’re measuring bottom to top, I would say we’re at about 55% to 65% of the way there.” That currently places the bitcoin cycle top at roughly $126,000 to $134,000 according to on-chain metrics, he said, though these price targets could move higher “if the market accelerates to the upside.”
That would lend to the theory that bitcoin returns are diminishing each cycle as the asset matures — a $134,000 top would mean bitcoin would have only doubled its valuation compared to its 2021 top of $69,000. Back then, bitcoin had managed to triple its price compared to the 2017 cycle. Puell said ARK Invest was ready for such a scenario of diminishing returns, but that data was inconclusive so far.
At the beginning of the year, ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood laid out a bullish target of $1 million to $1.5 million per bitcoin by 2030, with a base target of $650,000. Price will likely be buoyed by the incoming Trump administration, Puell said, depending on who the President-elect picks as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and how accommodative towards risk-on assets the Federal Reserve’s policy turns out to be. Not to mention the prospect of a strategic bitcoin reserve.
“Monetary policy and the SEC stance are the things to focus on. But the analogy I would use is that a strategic bitcoin reserve wouldn’t be just like the cherry on top — it would be like a whole new cake on top of a cake,” Puell said.
But that doesn’t mean bitcoin will keep soaring forever. Seasonality and cycles mean that eventually, the top cryptocurrency could suffer another bear market, and eventually plunge 70% from its all-time high, Puell said. The price floor will depend, then, on how high bitcoin can go before the music stops.
