- Crypto bull Mike Novogratz said Wednesday that he’ll be delighted if bitcoin trades at $30,000 by the end of the year.
- “I would’ve given both my shoes for that to be true just six weeks ago,” he told a Bank of America conference.
- That’s a far cry from the $500,000 price target Novogratz has previously shared.
Mike Novogratz said Wednesday he expects bitcoin‘s price to hit $30,000 within a few weeks, but would be delighted if it’s still trading at that level by the end of the year.
“When I look at the price action, when I look at the excitement of the customers calling, the FOMO building up ā it wouldn’t surprise me if we were at $30,000 by the end of the quarter,” the Galaxy Digital CEO told a Bank of America conference, per Bloomberg.
“I would’ve given both my shoes for that to be true just six weeks ago,” Novogratz added. “Like if we end the year at $30,000, I will be the happiest guy.”
Cryptocurrencies have rallied at the start of 2023, as investors grew more confident a widely predicted recession might not actually happen. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, has risenĀ 48% year-to-date to trade at just under $25,000.
The token would have to climb another 22% to reach Novogratz’s $30,000 target. Even then, it’d be way below the $69,000 all-time high it reached in November 2021, at the peak of crypto’s last bull market.
Novogratz ā who has previously repeatedly predicted that bitcoin’s price will eventually hit $500,000 ā is only forecasting moderate gains for bitcoin in 2023 because he thinks interest rates will stay high for the rest of the year.
The Federal Reserve raised interest rates from near-zero to just under 5% in under a year in a bid to crush inflation. That fueled a brutal crypto winter in 2022, because investors could earn higher returns by parking their cash in a savings account rather than piling into riskier assets like bitcoin.
Novogratz pointed to Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s insistence that rates will have to remain high to bring inflation in line with the central bank’s 2% target. He cited this as evidence bitcoin won’t enjoy a breakout above $30,000 any time soon.
“What makes me skeptical that we can have the explosive back-to-the-old highs this year, is chairman Powell,” he said. “He’s really doing what he says he’s going to do, and I don’t see the Fed pivoting and cutting anytime soon.”
Cryptos also struggled in 2022 because of the implosion of high-profile companies like FTX, which filed for bankruptcy in November.
Novogratz has repeatedly slammed former FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried ā who’s currently awaiting trial for fraud in the US ā and said last month that he’d like to punch the disgraced crypto titan in the face.
