Reza Bundy, CEO of Atlas Capital and business partner of longtime bitcoin critic Nouriel Roubini, expects bitcoin to drop as much as 70% over the next six months before eventually climbing as high as $500,000 in the coming years.
Speaking to CoinDesk at the Proof of Talk conference in Paris, Reza Bundy, CEO of investment advisory firm Atlas Capital, issued his grim macroeconomic warning that runs counter to typical industry optimism.
“We think there will be a massive decline in bitcoin in the next six months,” Bundy said, echoing Roubini’s long-held thesis. “The [drawdown] could be up to 70%. We think $26,000 to $30,000 was the number we came up with. If there is a decline in the stock market that is even half of what happened in 2008, Bitcoin will double that debt loss.”
Bitcoin traded around $63,000, down nearly 28% this year, while stock markets have rallied on AI hype and momentum chasing. The S&P 500 rose 10% and the Nasdaq rose about 19%, outperforming bitcoin over the same period.
‘Dr. Doom’
Bundy said his bearish forecast is built directly on data and analysis developed with his chief economist and co-founder, Dr. Nouriel Roubini, known as “Dr. Doom” for accurately predicting the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis.
Roubini is also an anti-bitcoin advocate whose skepticism about bitcoin stretches back to the historic bull run of 2017. While bitcoin is up about 850% from the level when Roubini first called it a bubble, Dr. Doom maintained his bearish stance on the digital asset.
In recent market assessments published on Bloomberg, Roubini reiterated his belief that bitcoin is a “pseudo-asset class” and a purely “speculative asset” that lacks fundamental value or real-world utility, making it separate from real financial hedges like gold.
Bundy has somewhat echoed this prediction of doom for bitcoin, at least in the short term. He argued that bitcoin has failed as an inflation hedge, as many bulls have said, and is now just a highly volatile risk asset that moves in lockstep with tech stocks.
While bitcoin advocates are likely to dispute that characterization, pointing to the asset’s long-term returns and fixed supply, Bundy’s criticism echoes comments from billionaire investor Mark Cuban, who recently said he sold most of his bitcoin after it failed to act as a hedge during periods of geopolitical stress and dollar weakness.
Bitcoin’s original promise
On the flip side, Bundy is not a perma-bear on bitcoin.
He still believes in bitcoin’s ‘store of value’ thesis and is bullish on the long term. Bundy’s long-term prediction is a price range of $150,000 to $500,000, which puts him on par with his Atlas partner, Roubini.
His optimism goes back to bitcoin’s original promise as an alternative currency that counters global political and monetary chaos. Bundy argued that bitcoin’s long-term growth will be driven by rising national debt, indiscriminate money printing by central banks, and loss of trust in traditional currencies (as originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto).
And Bundy has reasons for his bullishness. He mapped bitcoin’s long-term price using four economic paths:
- First, during “Controlled Expansion” (40% chance), the world sees stable growth and stable inflation. This causes the markets to move upwards, pushing bitcoin to a range of $150,000 to $250,000.
- Second, if “Fiscal Dominance” prevails (25% chance), governments will print money to cover their massive debts, leading to high inflation. This environment favors scarce assets and drives bitcoin between $250,000 and $500,000.
- Third, a “global conflict” path (20% chance) involves major security shocks in places like Taiwan or the Middle East. This would trigger a quick market panic and initial price drop, but would ultimately prove bitcoin’s value as a safe, neutral asset.
- Fourth, a “deflationary recession” (15% chance) means a severe credit freeze that leaves bitcoin weak until central banks step in to pump liquidity back into the system.
‘Techno-dollar’ shift
In the short term, however, Bundy still sees a global financial crisis on the horizon. He warns that the traditional stock market is a bubble waiting to pop like 1929, and this thesis also informs Atlas Capital’s investment strategy, called the “techno-dollar,” Bundy said.
Instead of tying digital tokens to a single falling sovereign currency, he claimed the strategy uses AI-powered allocation models to shift exposure between assets including gold, food, real estate and defense technology. Atlas currently runs this asset allocation strategy through a traditional ETF vehicle with the ticker “USAF” on the Nasdaq. The fund currently has about $18 million in net assets and returned 8.7% since inception, according to TradingView data. Bundy also plans to tokenize it on public blockchains later this month.
When asked why bitcoin isn’t part of the fund, even though he’s bullish on the long term, Bundy said he’s waiting for the short-term market crash he predicted would pass first.
“We believe there will be a major stock market correction and we don’t want to be part of the bitcoin pullout. When the correction happens, we will make our final decision to include or not.”
