(Bloomberg) -- Bitcoin’s recent slide isn’t discouraging for crypto bull Thomas Lee, who predicts that the of the digital-coin market will roughly double to more than $1.2 trillion this year.
Lee expects the price of one Bitcoin will surge to $125,000 by 2022. That’s 400 percent higher than his forecast from October, when he said the top digital token may reach $25,000 over the same period. That compares with about $11,750 Thursday.
But before these crypto dreams become reality, Bitcoin has some hurdles to overcome in 2018.
“While returns should be strong, we forecast returns to be lower than 2017,” wrote Lee, head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors, in a report. “We expect Bitcoin’s major low to be $9,000 and would be aggressive buyers around that level.”
Here’s what else Lee thinks is in store for the cryptocurrency market:
- By the end of this year, Ethereum will climb to $1,900, Ethereum Classic will rise to $60, and NEO will rally to $225
- The dominance of large-cap tokens will increase in 2018, but investors may also take advantage of opportunities to rotate into alternative coins; small-caps outperformed Bitcoin during five of the past six Bitcoin selloffs
- More institutional money will flow into crypto in 2018
- The theoretical maximum number of Bitcoins that can exist -- 21 million -- probably won’t be mined until 2045 or later given the deceleration of new coins
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.
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