Bitcoin
Tom Lee Maintains $150,000 Bitcoin Outlook, Says Glut to Shrink in 2H
Fundstrat’s Tom Lee is sticking with his $150,000 bitcoin forecast despite the cryptocurrency’s recent weakness. Bitcoin has been stuck in a tight trading range between $60,000 and $70,000 since hitting an all-time high of around $73,000 in March. In late June, it fell back to the lower end of that range. “Bitcoin is probably suffering from the start of the Mt. Gox distributions in July — that was a huge excess for many years,” Lee told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday morning. “If I were investing in crypto, knowing that one of the biggest excesses is going to disappear in July, I would think that’s a reason to actually expect a pretty sharp recovery in the second half.” As a result, $150,000 for bitcoin is still within reach, Lee added. BTC.CM=1M Mountain Bitcoin’s Recent Weakness On June 24, the administrator of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox, once the world’s largest, said it would begin paying creditors in July — 142,000 bitcoins worth $9 billion at current prices — despite having an October deadline to do so. That spooked the market, with investors worried that creditors might soon sell some of that bitcoin after waiting more than 10 years for a resolution with the exchange. In addition, the U.S. and German governments sent large amounts of previously seized bitcoin to exchanges in late June, further fueling the currency’s recent weakness. Bitcoin rose 4% at one point over the weekend to begin trading in July at around $62,000. Investors are still bullish on the price of bitcoin after it traded in a 20% range for several months last summer before eventually rising higher. They also point out that bitcoin has historically approached new all-time highs about 18 months after its regular halving. This year’s occurred in April. Furthermore, Lee stressed that investors cannot afford to miss just a few days in any given year. Bitcoin “makes most of its gains [in] 10 days every year. If you take the best 10 days of a single year, bitcoin actually has negative returns.”