Veteran trader Peter Brandt said he doesn’t expect Bitcoin to hit $200,000 by the end of this year, as some crypto executives have predicted — in fact, it could take nearly four more years.
“The next bull market in Bitcoin should take us to $200,000 or so. That should be in around Q3 2029,” Brandt wrote on X on Thursday, while noting that he remains a “long-term bull on Bitcoin.”
Brandt’s forecast stands out because many prominent Bitcoin proponents, including BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes and BitMine chair Tom Lee, had expected the cryptocurrency to reach at least $200,000 by year-end. Both Hayes and Lee reaffirmed their confidence in this prediction as recently as October.
Brandt’s outlook also contrasts sharply with other crypto executives, such as Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood, who are forecasting Bitcoin could reach $1 million by 2030 — roughly five times higher than Brandt’s projection just one quarter later.
Bitcoin has been in a downtrend almost continuously since hitting a record high of $125,100 on Oct. 5, falling as low as $88,000 on Wednesday. After a brief recovery, the price dropped further to $86,870 at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap.
Despite the decline, veteran trader Peter Brandt described the pullback as a healthy development.
“This dumping is the best thing that could happen to Bitcoin,” he said. Other crypto analysts have also noted that such reset periods have historically set the stage for even stronger gains in the future.
Brandt has likened Bitcoin’s recent price action to the soybean market in the 1970s. Around 50 years ago, soybean prices peaked before plunging 50% as global supply began to outpace demand.
“In the 1970s, soybeans formed such a top, then declined 50% in value,” he said.
Meanwhile, Charles Edwards, founder of Capriole Investments, pointed out that Bitcoin is experiencing unprecedented institutional selling. “Bitcoin has never seen this much institutional selling as a percentage of Coinbase volume in all of history,” he said.
