Insiders say BTC could test new highs in 2023

Bitcoin is up nearly 70% so far this year — and industry insiders who spoke to CNBC remain optimistic, with one saying the world’s largest cryptocurrency could reach new heights.

Bitcoin previously reached its all-time high of $68,990.90 in November 2021. Since then, it has fallen by about 60%.

Marshall Beard, chief strategy officer at US-based cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, said $100,000 could be an opportunity for bitcoin.

“I think bitcoin is likely to break all-time highs this year,” Beard said, adding that the $100,000 price mark is an “interesting number.”

Beard said that if bitcoin hits its previous all-time high of nearly $69,000, “it won’t take much more to take off” to $100,000.

Bitcoin should rally about 270% to reach $100,000.

Paolo Ardoino, chief technology officer at stablecoin publisher Tether, said bitcoin could “retest” its all-time high near $69,000.

The forecasts of new record highs point to a more optimistic outlook than in January, when industry executives told CNBC they expected 2023 to be a year of caution.

Part of the industry’s positive view of bitcoin right now actually stems from how the asset has performed during the banking turmoil caused by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the failure of two crypto-friendly lenders Silvergate Capital and Signature Bank.

Instead of crashing, bitcoin soared.

Bitcoin proponents say this is proof that bitcoin offers an alternative to the traditional banking system as a place where people can keep their money safe.

“I think the rally can be explained by saying people have been freaked out by the banking system because of the collapse,” Oliver Linch, CEO of Bittrex Global, told CNBC in an interview during Paris Blockchain Week on Thursday.

For years, bitcoin proponents have argued that bitcoin is a form of “digital gold” – a safe haven that can provide investors with a hedge against inflation and an investment in times of turmoil. But in recent years, bitcoin has traded in correlation to stocks, particularly the tech-heavy Nasdaq.

There are now signs of decoupling with bitcoin vastly outperforming the Nasdaq, many other high-risk assets and gold this year.

But bitcoin also received a boost in hopes that the banking crisis could reduce the US Federal Reserve’s ability to be equally aggressive with interest rate hikes, which would be supportive of risky assets like cryptocurrencies.

Discussion about where the price of the digital coin could go this year has been rife since Balaji Srinivasan, an investor and former chief of technology at Coinbase, deployed on March 17, that bitcoin would be worth $1 million or more in 90 days. He bet $2 million.

The bet was in response to a Twitter user who said they would bet $1 million that the US will not go into hyperinflation.

Srinivasan argued that the “world on Bitcoin is redenominating as digital gold” as hyperinflation hits, the value of the US dollar erodes and nations, individuals and companies begin to buy large amounts of bitcoin. Hyperinflation is the massive increase in prices in an economy.

A $1 million price on bitcoin would represent an increase of about 3,600% over the digital currency’s current price.

Most people have poured cold water on this prediction.

Gemini’s Bear said “there’s probably a world where bitcoin hits a million dollars,” but not in 90 days as Srinivasan bet.

“I think if bitcoin is a million dollars in 90 days, crazy things are going to happen in the world, which we don’t want,” Beard said, adding that it could take 10 years to get close to that figure.

Tether’s Ardoino echoed the sentiment that if bitcoin reached $1 million in 90 days, it would likely signify an unusual economic event.

“I’m a little skeptical about that because honestly I wouldn’t even hope for that,” Ardoino told CNBC in an interview on Paris Blockchain Week, which aired Thursday.

“Because if bitcoin were to reach such a high price level, [it] would mean the entire economy collapses. I’m not sure [that] is the world we want to live in.”