Bitwise CIO ‘not so sure’ about Bitcoin hitting $100K in 2021

As 2022 draws closer, some cryptocurrency investment experts are now doubtful on whether Bitcoin (BTC) has enough time to hit $100,000 in 2021.

Following a major flash crash in the cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin is unlikely to break new all-time highs in the next three weeks and go all the way up to $100,000, according to Bitwise’s chief investment officer Matt Hougan.

“$100,000 by the end of the year is a difficult prediction to make [...] I think $100,000 could be in target in 2022 but this year, I’m not so sure,” Hougan said in a Dec. 6 interview.

He noted that a potential cryptocurrency rally in 2022 will be largely thanks to growing institutional support. “I think as we look into 2022, we still have these fundamental drivers, the institutions we speak to everyday at Bitwise,” Hougan said, adding that many institutions are still moving into the market for the first time.

The CIO also predicted that 2022 will see an “explosion of activity built on Ethereum” and layer-one solutions, or those aiming to improve the base protocol itself to scale the overall system rather than creating a different protocol.

“Investors are going to be looking at Ethereum, Solana, or Polygon. Investors are starting to realize there’s more to crypto than just Bitcoin. If there’s one bigger story for next year, it’s going to be everything else: crypto as DeFi, NFTs, Web3, or metaverse,” Hougan predicted.

While Hougan noted the growing potential of altcoins — or coins other than Bitcoin — some prominent figures in the crypto community are still sticking with BTC.

Bobby Lee, founder and CEO of crypto hardware wallet Ballet, argued Dec. 6 that Bitcoin is “more valuable” than altcoins because Bitcoin is not backed by “any sort of project, or a promise that can fail.”

The crypto community has been watching the Bitcoin price closely this year with notable figures in the industry predicting BTC to hit $100,000 by the end of 2021, including Standard Chartered’s cryptocurrency research unit, stock-to-flow model creator PlanB, Morgan Creek Digital Assets co-founder Anthony Pompliano, SkyBridge Capital CEO Anthony Scaramucci and others.

Related: Bitcoin to hit $250K in January 2022 but ‘invalidate’ S2FX BTC price model — New prediction

Others in the crypto community have taken a more skeptical view.

The year is 2050: “One more shakeout for #Bitcoin  and then it’s moon time! 100k EOY” Ok Grandma let’s get you to bed. pic.twitter.com/F9RoBF8qdo

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $51,290, notably recovering after dropping below $47,000 on Dec. 4, according to data from CoinGecko. After starting 2021 at around $30,000, Bitcoin hit its all-time high above $67,000 in mid-November.