2025 is drawing to a close with few crypto market stories more dramatic than the “flash crash” on October 10, when bitcoin dropped $12,000, or nearly 10%, in minutes. The meltdown sparked more than $19 billion in liquidations in just 24 hours, followed by a trader-circulated “cascade warning” and a staggering $500 billion wiped from the total crypto market cap.
That set the stage for an extended slide that saw the biggest cryptocurrency fall more than 30% below the high of $126,223 it hit just six days earlier. This painful decline will likely let it post its first full-year loss since the crypto winter of 2022.
The year began on a more optimistic note, with bitcoin price predictions ranging from dreamlike fantasies to more conservative targets that at times seemed within reach. Then it changed after the October 10 crash. Many predictions, from seasoned analysts to outspoken evangelists, shared one thing in common: They don’t age well.
Let’s ignore the long-term forecasts rising as high as $1 billion by 2038 from Jurrien Timmer, Fidelity’s global head of macro, or the undated $700,000 whose institutional adoption reached scale from BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. Even the more restrained estimates now seem somewhat exaggerated.
Some forecasts were not just bullish; they were explosive.
Samson Mow, CEO of bitcoin technology company Jan3, predicted in February that bitcoin would hit $1 million by the end of 2025 in a “violent” upward move fueled by the collapse of fiat currencies.
He received support from Blockstream CEO and founder Adam Back, arguably one of the most respected personalities in bitcoin, who also reportedly said in April that he believed BTC could reach $500,000 to $1 million by the end of 2025. His bullish thesis was driven by ETF inflows, institutional buying and limited supply.
He wasn’t the only one. Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya also predicts $500,000 in October.
Even some of the more conservative estimates for the year-end price target surpassed the all-time high.
Among them were JPMorgan analysts, who in early October, before the crash, raised their annual forecast to $165,000, based on a growing embrace of “debasement trading,” an increase in investor demand for alternative stores of value.
Even after the crash, Michael Saylor, the executive chairman of bitcoin treasury company Strategy (MSTR), helped keep bulls’ hopes alive with his October 28 “expectation” that BTC would be “around $150,000 by the end of this year.” Strategy, the holder of the most bitcoin among publicly traded companies, bought an additional $1 billion of BTC on December 15, increasing its total holdings to 671,268.
Of course they weren’t alone. Throughout 2025, a stream of price predictions poured in from across the crypto landscape, most of which only serve as reminders of how harsh predictions can be.
There was the forecast for a first quarter peak of $180,000 from VanEck’s digital assets research team, more than $50,000 above the actual peak. Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan had said that BTC would reach $200,000 in 2025, supported by what he called “the most bullish setup in years.”
Tom Lee of Fundstrat Global Advisors reiterated his 200,000-$250,000 forecast well into October. Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, said he “joined” a similar area as recently as November.
The humiliating truth
Only a handful adjusted their expectations downward in time.
Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz, once a $500,000 prophet, was one of the few to publicly call back, saying in October that BTC would likely end the year between $120,000 and $125,000. Standard Chartered followed suit in December, lowering its target to $100,000 from $200,000.
In the end, 2025 reminded the market of an old truth: Bitcoin humiliates everyone. It shrugs off models, breaks charts and ignores even the boldest calls. Some missing inches. Other missed miles. But almost all missed.
As the dust settles, the industry is once again left with charts to be redrawn, narratives to be rewritten, and a single, undeniable takeaway: in crypto, predictions are easy to make. Being right is rare.
