The price of Bitcoin may have fallen back below its earlier 2021 all-time high after touching a record level of nearly $74,000 last week, but some analysts are still bullish on the leading cryptocurrency.
Global investment firm AllianceBernstein said in a Thursday note that the biggest digital coin by market cap will hit $90,000 by the end of this year, up from a previous projection of $80,000.
Bitcoin last week flipped silver’s market cap but has since dipped in price and is now trading for $66,536.
“Given general bull market conditions with strong ETF inflows, low miner leverage, and robust network transaction fees this cycle, the halving impact seems relatively mild on the miners, with dollar revenues cushioned,” Bernstein analysts Gautam Chhugani and Mahika Sapra said Thursday.
Bitcoin’s halving—now expected on April 20—is a quadrennial event which sees miner rewards permanently cut in half. Miners, which are individuals or organizations that mint new digital coins, earn Bitcoin for keeping the network running. Their payment is cut every four years, making the cryptocurrency scarcer.
It is the second time this month the researchers have dropped bullish predictions for the cryptocurrency. Just last week, analysts at the firm predicted that the asset would reach $150,000 in 2025 due to the huge demand for newly approved spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the States.
“We are now more convinced about our $150K price for Bitcoin,” analysts Gautam Chhugani and Mahika Sapra said at the time.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs in January following a decade of attempts by high profile firms. The products, which trade on stock exchanges, have experienced massive inflows as investors with interest in the asset snap up the ETF shares.
Bernstein analysts argue that the popularity of the ETFs is a bullish signal for Bitcoin.
The analysts also said that buying Bitcoin mining stocks would also benefit investors wanting exposure to the crypto space, noting that Riot and CleanSpark would be the top miners post-halving.
Edited by Andrew Hayward