Bull Run Crypto Predictions (2023–2025)

9 min readAug 6, 2023

This cycle’s Narratives, Altcoins, Prices, Timelines and Black Swans

The halving is coming. In every previous cycle, Bitcoin’s halving has been the best bull run indicator, presaging a run-up in prices that has historically lasted 18–24 months. This article will outline why this bull run is setting up to be the most explosive one to date, and some specific predictions on narratives, altcoins, timelines, price targets and much more. Let’s dig in.

Current State of the Markets:

We currently sit in a state of hybernation: the accumulation phase. The peak fear of the bear market is very likely behind us, marked by the collapses of FTX, Celsius, BlockFi, Voyager, 3AC and many more. The overcorrection and drop to $15,000 Bitcoin and $900 ETH were drawdowns from the all-time-highs of roughly 78% and 80% respectively. Most altcoins are still down in excess of 90%, and still many more are no longer in existence.

Unsurprisingly, the bottom was marked by calls for $10K and $5K Bitcoin, “this time is different”, “crypto is dead” … the usual collection of capitulation statements. Notable perma-bears like El Crypto Chapo and Data Dash continue to lament a coming doomsday collapse. Most influencers and macro analysts are still predicting a gigantic recession and 30% stock market drop.

The weaker protocols and all but the strongest hodlers have been shaken from the market. Even the elsewise dire news of SEC lawsuits has had a negligeable effect on the market, as die-hard hodlers shrug off the FUD and bunker down for the coming halving. The crypto market now sits in a state of apathy, stuck somewhere in the transition between “depression” and “disbelief”.

The macro markets are a different matter. Employment levels are nearing 4% in the US. Although CPI inflation has come down in the midst of the fastest rate hikes in history, the true inflation remains stubbornly high. More importantly, the over-zealous rate hikes are very likely to send the US economy into short term deflation. In layman’s terms, the shit is hitting the fan.

That said, I take a rather contrarian view on what this means for markets going forward. Most of Wall Street takes a very doom and gloom view, calling for a recession and a big market correction. I am no macro analyst, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt, but it seems to me we are already in a recession, and markets are forward looking and have priced in much of the malaise. Every month that passes brings us closer to a rate hike pause and pivot, as well as the liquidity injections (QE) we know cannot be avoided. Moreover, when too many people are calling for the same outcome, the best bet is a contrarian one.

Here’s the long and short of it. Fiat is on a steady march to zero, and there is absolutely no way that politicians will employ unpopular austerity measures, even if that were a viable solution (it isn’t). Which means the only question is not if, but when they turn on the printers. In the next 12–18 months, we will likely see some form of pivot combined with the Bitcoin halving and resumption of worldwide inflation. A perfect trifecta which presages an epic crypto bull run.

Crypto Predictions 2023–2025:

Timelines:

My base case assumption is that we accumulate into early next year with some sideways chop and steady mild rise in prices towards mid 2024. I expect the full on bull run to start towards June/July of 2024 and extend well into 2025, fading out in the fall of 2025 near Sept/Oct.

Price Targets:

Take these targets with a grain of salt, as no one has a crystal ball and frankly what we need to be paying attention to are the leverage levels, on-chain metrics, macro and other crypto-specific metrics at that time with a view to determining when it is time to sell.

That said, my expectations are effectively a modification to the four year cycles. I expect this cycle to lengthen slightly, and to have a significantly higher magnitude of market cap increase, and a slightly higher percentage increase to the last cycle (from low to high). There is big institutional money ready and willing on the sidelines, and in the right circumstances we could see a much higher short blow off top.

TLDR:

BTC at Halving: $55K–65K

ETH at Halving $3,000 — $3,500

BTC at new ATH: $185K — $250K (12–16x from lows)

ETH at new ATH: $18K — $25K (20x — 28x)

Total Crypto Market Cap: $7–10T (3x)

2026 Bear Market Drop (BTC) 70–75%

Bull Run Cycle Structure:

As with some of the previous bull runs, my expectation is that Bitcoin and Ethereum will lead the bull run in its early stages, followed by the blue chip altcoins and finally by the more speculative small caps and NFTs.

If the bull run follows previous cycles, we are likely to see 3–4 major moves up and 3–4 major drawbacks. Narratives will shift and develop quickly, and most of those local tops will be presaged by very high levels of leveraged longs, and the usual cacophony of “influencers” screaming their outlandish price targets.

Look for a run up in blue chips like $LINK, $MATIC and $SOL for early indications on early stages of the bull run.

Specific Predictions (The Alpha!)

Gaming will be the biggest narrative by user growth and TVL. There will be a hugely successful game to hit the market and print some millionaires. All other gaming coins will have a parabolic speculative runup in prices irrespective of merit. Select NFT gaming assets will also do very well.
Gaming infrastructure coins will provide a leveraged GameFi opportunity that is not tied to a specific game. These will offer a better risk reward opportunity than investing in specific games.
Real Yield will be a huge comeback narrative. Projects with real business models and revenue, and with proper tokenomics that accrue that value, will moon hard.
Smart Contract wallets and all-in-one user interfaces will see huge adoption, and massive growth in fees generated. Platforms like Zerion or Metamask that offer all-in-one terminals for bridging, swaps, wallet access and NFT/portfolio tracking will be big winners this cycle.
The Real World Assets (RWA) narrative will take off, but most of these platforms will be unsuccessful at actually offering value and properly regulated structures. Expect this narrative to be short lived, with a smaller number of super successful investments. The winners in this category may be big money makers, but picking the right ones will be very tough as there will be a high failure rate.
Old school ponzinomics will not attract nearly the attention as in previous markets. Pseudo nonsense utilities like inflationary staking, governance, and “community” will take a backseat to true token utility and yield.
Launchpads will come back with a vengeance as it becomes more and more difficult to find profitable investments before they moon. However, given the more mature and competitive landscape compared to previous cycles, only the launchpads with solid connections and premium offerings will provide high ROI projects. Those premium launchpads will garner amplified interest and experience outsized price appreciation. Vesting terms will be much longer and offer less quick flip opportunities, meaning successful investors will need to be more discerning and actively manage their positions.
Ethereum dominance will increase dramatically. ETH dominance currently sits around 20%, and given the high and growing staking levels as well as the deflationary burn mechanics, we could see ETH and ETH dominance really take off this cycle. Also expecting ETH to BTC to exceed 0.1, and climb as high as 0.15 this cycle.
Ethereum deflationary mechanism will surprise a lot of investors, combined with low exchange balances and growing amount of staked ETH will lead to a big squeeze on ETH.
Rate hike pivot in late 2024, with significant reductions in interest rates after the US presidential election. This will be fuel added onto the crypto bull market fire.
Airdrops narrative will be a big flop. There are armies of professional airdrop farmers. The yield on airdrops has already dropped significantly, and the investment ROI is low and dropping. Expect most airdrops to be big let downs, with a few noteworthy exceptions.
Layer 1’s will lose their lustre as the benefits are far outweighed by the advantages of being a native Ethereum L2/L3. Layer 2’s will continue to take on a bigger and bigger role.
Bridges will consolidate into a smaller number of safer and more efficient protocols. Eventually, tokens will simply issue natively on multiple chains using a version of the OFT (Omnichain Fungible Tokens) by Layer Zero (or Chainlink and Axelar’s similar tech)
Multiple BTC ETFs will be approved, likely in early 2024. This will likely come concurrently with GAAP accounting changes for Bitcoin (one of the largest obstacles for institutions). Combined, this will allows huge inflows of institutional and family office money into BTC.
Multiple large corporations will add BTC to balance sheet (change in accounting will expedite this).
News of sovereign funds acquiring BTC (small to midsize countries). Odds are, with the huge increase in Hash Rate even during the depths of the bear market, countries are already quietly acquiring BTC. News of any moderate size country stacking Sats will set off the early stages of a race for countries to stack BTC.
Legacy coins will lag hard in price appreciation. Coins like LTC, BCH, BSV, XRP, etc will be outperformed by newer entrants and projects with better use cases.
Early markings of big corporate acquisitions in the crypto space. Look for the tech giants to start acquiring crypto native companies like Metamask, Uniswap and other juggernauts.

Altcoins to Watch:

Chainlink ($LINK): THE biggest and most adopted crypto infrastructure coin. The only missing ingredient is a stronger link between it widespread use and the token value accrual.
Solana ($SOL): The only real (non-L2) alternative to Ethereum that has adoption and integrations and offers cheap transactions. Lots of room for price to appreciate after the outsized drawdown.
Launchpads Tokens: Citizen Capital (Neo Tokyo), XBorg, Duck Dao, and many more.
Level Finance ($LVL): Perpetuals DEX on BSC and Arbitrum with huge yields and phenomenal tokenomics.
Swissborg ($CHSB): Alpha opportunities program, rebrand and tokenomics improvements, great CEX aggregator app.
Lybra Finance: ($LBR): Decentralized yield bearing stablecoin and liquid staking derivatives protocol.
Polygon ($MATIC): Top PoS layer 2 to Ethereum with a big tech stack. Coming out with their new zkEVM chain which should be a big deal, particularly for gaming dApps.
Immutable X ($IMX): Main NFT and Gaming L2, partnership with Polygon for an Immutable zkEVM taking gaming to the next level.
ApeCoin ($APE): Universal gaming coin potential?
RocketXExchange ($RVF): CEX and DEX aggregator with NO KYC requirements and atomic swap capability. Targets some serious crypto pain points and is quickly gaining adoption.

There are many more Altcoins with serious potential, but consider the above just a brief highlight (check here for a breakdown of my 2023 altcoin portfolio). The reality is that the rising tide lifts all boats, and it will not take a genius to find winners once the bull truly sets in. The differentiator is that you need to choose coins with sustainable use cases to give you the best chance at exiting in profit and not joining the ranks of all the sunken ships that litter the crypto seas.

Conclusion:

The magic of the crypto cycles is that although they often rhyme, they seldom repeat. There will be new narratives and innovations that we have not yet considered, and surprises to ones we had written off. There will be ups and downs, and everything in between. The key to all of it is to control our emotions and bank those profits. (full bull run strategy here)

We can only set ourselves up the best we can, and manage our positions conservatively but with conviction.

We are approaching one of the best opportunities of our lifetimes, and we cannot afford to park money is a 5% T-Bill and “avoid any risk”. Crypto is a paradigm shift, and one which most people still do not understand and is in its very early stages. That is precisely why it is such an incredible opportunity.

Good luck out there, and see you on the next one!

Sovereign Crypto

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Referral Bonuses/Codes:

Cross Chain Swaps: RocketX Exchange: https://app.rocketx.exchange/?ref=LG5RWYCO
Best Exchange (non-us): Swissborg: https://join.swissborg.com/en/r/alexanLHJA
Perpetuals DEX: Level Finance https://levelling.io/p77a

Disclosures:

I own or am accumulating the above mentioned tokens.

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