Contrarian bulls may take heart as at least one well-followed analyst throws in the towel on his hefty end-of-year price target for bitcoin .
“While bitcoin’s structural investment case remains strong, the cyclical dynamic has developed,” Alex Thorn, head of research at Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital, wrote in a note to clients Wednesday morning.
Noting whale distribution, waning interest in BTC-adjacent investments, rotation to competing investment narratives such as gold, artificial intelligence (AI) and stablecoins, and treasury “malaise” as contributing to headwinds, Thorn lowered his year-end price target for bitcoin to $120,000,000 from $18,000.
At least two other analysts were a bit more constructive. “There is no reason to get too bearish on BTC at this point,” said Charlie Morris, Chief Investment Officer at ByteTree. The $100,000 level has the potential to be a major support level as it has been tested several times, he said, but “bad things can happen, so we shouldn’t count on it.”
Morris added that BTC, now barely in the green for 2025, is currently “by no means overbought and is underhyped,” suggesting cautious optimism for potential upside when stability returns.
Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick, meanwhile, saw opportunity in the volatility. “The dip below 100,000 overnight may well be the last ever,” he wrote in a note on Wednesday. Kendrick laid out a step-by-step dip-buying approach: collect 25% of a target position now, another 25% if BTC manages to close above $103,000 on Friday, and the last 50% of the BTC allocation goes back to 30 currently. 26.
Wednesday sees early gains
Bitcoin staged a modest jump above $103,000 in the early US morning hours on Wednesday, recouping some of the losses from Tuesday’s steep sell-off that pushed prices below $99,000 for the first time since June.
Ethereum’s Ether bounced back nearly 10% from Tuesday’s low as liquidations pulled the price to just above $3,000. The second-largest crypto is trading at $3,340, up 10% from its worst levels on Tuesday, but still down 6% over a 24-hour time frame.
The fastest horses among altcoins were decentralized exchange tokens and privacy-focused Zcash that led with 6% and 10% gains respectively.
Crypto-related stocks opened the session with tepid gains after yesterday’s big losses. Among the winners were Coinbase ( COIN ), up 1.9% and Strategy ( MSTR ), ahead 1.4%.
