Bitcoin Sell-Off Defers $100K Price Dreams

Bitcoin (BTC) at $100,000, predicted by many analysts in recent years, is looking more fanciful thanks to the recent sell-off, the largest drop for the oldest cryptocurrency in eight months.

Those bullish price calls for a six-figure BTC price had come from big names including Goldman Sachs, Guggenheim, Pantera and Bloomberg Intelligence.

As late as November, when bitcoin surged to an all-time-high price of $69,000, some traders hoped the $100,000 psychological milestone might be reached in 2021. Now, at the current price of around $36,000, bitcoin would have to nearly triple to hit $100K.

Here's a list of some of the high-profile bitcoin price calls that, if not negated altogether, are moving further into the realm of fantasy.

• Dan Morehead, CEO and co-chief investment officer at Pantera Capital, predicted bitcoin would hit $115,000 in the summer of 2021, according to a CoinDesk story in March.

• Zach Pandl, Goldman Sachs’ co-head of foreign exchange strategy, predicted bitcoin would increase to just over $100,000 in the next five years, for a compound annualized return of 17%-18%, according to a CoinDesk story earlier this month.

• Nayib Bukele, El Salvador's president, who successfully pushed for bitcoin as a national currency, tweeted on Jan. 1 that bitcoin would reach $100,000 in 2022. (Until then, he's been buying the dip in price.)

• Samson Mow, chief strategy officer for bitcoin software company Blockstream, told Yahoo Finance in a story published on Jan. 3, "We will see $100,000 within the first half of the year."

• Marcus Sotiriou, analyst at U.K.-based digital asset broker GlobalBlock, thought bitcoin would hit $500,000 within five to 10 years, and that it would not surprise him if it hit $100,000 at the end of 2022, according to an Independence story in December.

• Jurrien Timmer, Fidelity Investments director of global macro, said bitcoin could reach $100,000 as early as 2023, on the CNBC show "Squawk on the Street" in October.

• Chris Kline, Bitcoin IRA chief operating officer, said one in three Americans think bitcoin's price would reach $100,000 in 2022, when he appeared on CoinDesk TV on Jan. 5.

• Adam Back said in an interview with Anthony Pompliano that after analyzing bitcoin options prices, crossing the $100,000 mark was still “quite possible” in a year, Benzinga reported in August.

• Mike McGlone, senior commodity strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, tweeted in March that bitcoin could reach $100,000 in September. (That did not happen.)

• Lennard Neo, a certified financial analyst and head of research at Stack Funds in Singapore, predicted in November 2020 that bitcoin would reach $60,000 to $80,000 by the end of 2021.

• Tim Draper, the venture capitalist, predicted bitcoin could hit $250,000 by 2022 or the first quarter of 2023, according to a Bloomberg report in May 2020.

• Scott Minerd, the chief investment officer at Guggenheim Investments, predicted in February that bitcoin could reach $600,000. (In October he said he’s no longer invested in bitcoin, adding that "discipline tells me now I don't fully understand this.")