Fundstrat’s Tom Lee hopes Bitcoin has “bottomed out” with mixed messages on BTC price action.
Bitcoin (BTC) retains two of its best-known proponents, but one of them has cooled its BTC price predictions considerably.
In an interview with CNBC on June 9, Tom Lee, co-founder of independent research firm Fundstrat, revealed that he is unsure if BTC/USD will end the year above its starting price.
Lee suggested that the market “has bottomed out.”
Bitcoin price forecasts for 2022 have plummeted due to a combination of macro pressures and black swan events such as the Terra implosion, bringing sentiment close to an all-time low.
While many believe the next few months will enter a capitulation event that will send BTC/USD to $20,000 or below, Lee believes it is the underlying strength that is worth watching now.
“It’s a risk-on asset, so I think to the extent that the Nasdaq and Bitcoin rallied, it helped us become more comfortable that the market has bottomed out,” he told CNBC’s CB Overtime segment.
Lee, meanwhile, was dismissive of the Terra debacle and layoffs at major cryptocurrency companies, including U.S. exchange Coinbase, saying bitcoin is “performing far better than people expected.”
When asked where BTC’s price action is headed in early 2023 – even as the related stock market puts up – the response was less than optimistic.
“I think bitcoin will go flat and probably up over the year,” he concluded.
Lee is previously known for his bullishness on bitcoin, including predicting $200,000 by 2022 shortly after its latest all-time high of $69,000 last November.
Saylor on BTC: “If It Doesn’t Go to Zero, It’ll Go to a Million”
Meanwhile, MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor was unabashedly bullish, his own comments to the mainstream media firmly brushing aside any hint of a permanent price downside.
Related. BTC Price Rises 4% Ahead of Fed Meeting, MicroStrategy Vows to Protect Bitcoin from $21,000 Plunge
He told CNBC on June 8 that those who claim bitcoin will be banned or go to zero have been “discredited.”
“If the deniers are wrong and the doubters are wrong – and clearly they’re all wrong on this – it’s not going to go to zero, and if it doesn’t go to zero, it’s going to hit a million,” Saylor predicted.
While this is nothing new, Saylor is “very bullish on our future,” which is increasingly at odds with the increasingly bearish view of risk assets across the board in the new era of central bank monetary tightening.
As Cointelegraph recently reported, some believe it will take until 2024, when the next block subsidy is halved, to enter a meaningful price recovery.
In the meantime, Saylor said it doesn’t make sense to “time the market” when it comes to buying more BTC for its existing reserves.
“We’re doing the equivalent of dollar cost averaging for large companies,” he explained.
He explained, “We’re not trying to time the market; I think all the statistics on the S&P and the Bitcoin index show that you can’t time the market. We’re just reinvesting free cash flow into the market when circumstances allow.”
According to Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, BTC/USD was trading at around $30,500 at the time of writing on June 9.
Post time: 06-10-2022