Bitcoin bull Mike Novogratz is dialing it back.
In January 2021, the founder and CEO of crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital said he would get a tattoo to commemorate Bitcoin reaching $500,000, which he expected to happen in 2024. On Wednesday, he said he’d be happy if Bitcoin merely traded at $30,000 by the end of this year.
Novogratz, an early investor in Bitcoin, made the comments at a Bank of America conference on Wednesday, as Bloomberg reported.
Bitcoin lost nearly 65% of its value over 2022, ending the year at about $16,500. It’s up about 50% year to date to $24,792. But that’s well below its peak of nearly $69,000 in November 2021.
“When I look at the price action, when I look at the excitement of the customers calling, the FOMO [fear of missing out] building up, it wouldn’t surprise me if we were at $30,000 by the end of the quarter,” he said. “And I would’ve given both my shoes for that to be true just six weeks ago. Like if we end the year $30,000, I will be the happiest guy.”
At a Bitcoin conference in Miami in April last year, Novogratz reiterated his prediction the cryptocurrency would hit $500,000, adding he also believed it would eventually reach $1 million. Bitcoin was then trading at around $44,300.
He said at the time that Bitcoin’s price would soar once the Fed stepped back from raising interest rates.
On Wednesday, he predicted that the $500,000 mark would eventually be reached, but not in the next five years, and he again pointed to Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s interest rate decisions.
“What makes me skeptical that we can have the explosive, back-to-the-old highs this year is Chairman Powell,” Novogratz 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.”
He’s not the only crypto investor remaining bullish on Bitcoin in the long term. Earlier this month, ARK Investment Management CEO Cathie Wood, long a Bitcoin believer, said that while 2022 was a “terrible year for everything crypto,” her firm predicts Bitcoin will hit “roughly $670,000” in five years then could pass $1 million by 2030.
Of course, many top business thinkers disagree with such predictions—or discredit Bitcoin and other crypto entirely. Mark Mobius, the billionaire cofounder of Mobius Capital Partners, predicted in December that Bitcoin would fall to $10,000 at some point this year.
And Warren Buffett’s right-hand man Charlie Munger argued in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this month that the U.S. Should follow China’s lead and pass laws that prevent both crypto trading and the formation of new cryptocurrencies.
In January last year, Novogratz tweeted a photo of a new tattoo on his shoulder. Reading “Luna” and showing a wolf howling at the moon, it indicated his enthusiasm for the cryptocurrency Luna, which later lost all its value after the wipeout of the so-called stablecoin TerraUSD, a sister token.
“It’s a good reminder that you are not always right,” Novogratz said last summer.
Note: “Bitcoin maximalist,” used to describe Novogratz in an earlier version of this story, has been replaced with “Bitcoin bull.” Bitcoin maximalists—pointing to Novogratz’s Luna investment—would argue that he is not one of them since they “strive to stay clear” of the “scam-ridden crypto industry” and “do not even consider Bitcoin to be the same thing as ‘crypto,’” as one reader wrote to us.
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