Bitcoin Price Prediction 2021
The cryptocurrency world thrives on speculation. Sentiment analysis, deep discussions, and gut feelings can all play their part in why we as a community buy, sell, and trade digital assets.
When trying to explain current prices, some look to the past, some use immediate events and news as justification, and some look towards the massive and unknown potential of the future. All of these things combined allow us to make predictions about future values, applications, and institutional adoption. In fewer words, we must combine market data with behavioural economics to come anywhere close to an accurate prediction.
In this piece, we will not be making our Bitcoin Price Prediction for 2021, but rather lending an ear (or an eye) to some of the experts who have been confident enough in their evaluations to share theirs.
Firstly…
What is Bitcoin and why do we look to the future?
In January 2009, a cryptographer working under the alias Satoshi Nakamoto released a whitepaper detailing his concept: Bitcoin. We still don’t know who he really was, but in the 12 years since, we’ve learned that Bitcoin can change the world. With lower translation fees and better speed offered than traditional online payment gateways, Bitcoin was full of promise, as well as being mostly decentralized.
Bitcoin is not a physical thing, but rather it’s a balance kept on a distributed ledger with transparent access to all. Every transaction is verified by computing power (known as crypto or Bitcoin mining), rather than people power, governments, or banks, which is what makes it ‘decentralized’. Bitcoin is not considered legal tender, but rather a piece of property called a commodity, so when you make a payment in Bitcoin, you are transferring property. This could one day change, which would have a big knock-on effect on Bitcoin’s price too.
The main reason we look to the future is because of Bitcoin’s exceptional value and growth over the last decade, with 1 BTC being worth around $50,000 at the time of writing. One BTC was just $0.0008 when they launched in 2010. The whole market cap is now floating somewhere around $1tn (at the time of writing), so who can afford not to pay attention? Those who are invested are curiously asking ‘where is the top?’ and those who are not invested are wondering ‘is it too late for me?’.
Altcoins, which is a collective term for all of the other cryptocurrencies, with Ethereum, Litecoin, and Dogecoin being some of the most well-known, are also in popular demand, and holders of these assets also closely following the market movements of Bitcoin. It typically correlates that upward trends in BTC result in price growths for most other coins.
Let’s take a look at Bitcoin’s all-time price chart and then see what the experts have to say about 2021’s Bitcoin price.
What is Finextra predicting?
Finextra is a highly reliable news platform for the financial technologies world, and they do excellent reporting on what is going on in crypto. In this prediction piece, they have collected some institutional and expert predictions for 2021, as follows:
- Thomas Fitzpatrick of Citi predicts $300,000-$318,000 by the end of 2021
- Mike Novogratz of Galaxy Investment Partners predicts $65,000 at the end of 2021
- Stock-to-Flow (S2F), a Bitcoin price prediction software, estimates a December 2021 price of around $100,000
- Bloomberg’s Mike McGlone thinks the value will stabilise around $50,000 by the end of the year
LongForecast’s data-driven assessment
Users of LongForecast will notice that predictions change daily, so we will only provide a rounded estimation from this forecasting and price prediction tool.
By the end of December 2021, LongForecast predicts Bitcoin will be worth around $96,000, with the biggest price rises coming during August and September. They also predict that at some point during December, Bitcoin will astonishingly break the $100k barrier.
BitcoinPrice’s collection of opinions
BitcoinPrice is a great tool for seeing what experts, such as economists, CEOs, and investors, think about Bitcoin’s price. You can see who got it wrong, who got it right, and what they think for the future. Here are some opinions:
- Shervin Pishevar, founder of HyperLoop One and Sherpa Capital predicts an end of 2021 Bitcoin price of $100,000
- Anthony Pompliano, the founder of Morgan Creek Capital, a crypto-friendly asset management firm, first predicted $100,000 and then revised his estimation to $250,000 for 2021, very bullish
- See more opinions and predictions for Bitcoin’s price by clicking this link
Price prediction verdict
The truth is, nobody knows what’s in store for Bitcoin, but based on increasing demand, institutional adoption, and a limited supply, the only way is up. Or, is it? Some Altcoins, such as Ethereum, Polkadot, and Cardano may actually outpace Bitcoin in terms of technology, and yet whilst it’s unlikely they’ll ever be more valuable than BTC, it’s not impossible.
There’s also the question of mining, with some mining companies growing faster in value than Bitcoin itself. There’s also the consideration that new third-generation cryptocurrencies can be built on technology that no longer needs to be mined and can actually reward holders with interest on their asset. This makes it more energy-efficient and can negate the environmental impacts of Bitcoin’s incredible energy consumption (which is now greater than the whole of Argentina).
We prefer not to make our own prediction for Bitcoin’s price at the end of 2021, but we certainly expect it to be more than the $50,000 it currently sits at in March.
Photo source: CoinMarketCap, Depositphotos
