Bitcoin (BTC) price prediction 2021

The world’s best-known and most widely traded cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC) is widely known for its phenomenal growth. Now, as awareness of cryptocurrencies continues to spread, all eyes are on Bitcoin’s price. So we asked our panel of 42 cryptocurrency experts what’s in store for the coin.

Bitcoin price predictions for 2021

The majority of panelists (61%) say Bitcoin is currently undervalued and on average the panel expects Bitcoin to end 2021 at US$66,284 per BTC. This is 28% higher than the panel’s end-of-2021 prediction back in December 2020, but 30% lower than the end-of-2021 prediction in April of this year.

Morpher CEO Martin Fröhler, the most bullish among the panel on BTC, gives an EOY prediction of $160,000 per BTC and says increased adoption will propel prices forward.

“Adoption by corporations and institutional investors paired with a loose monetary policy and high asset inflation will propel Bitcoin to six figures before the end of this year,” explains Fröhler. “The next halving cycle will see increased adoption of Bitcoin as a legal tender by developing countries, and until 2030 Bitcoin will have replaced gold as a global reserve asset.”

CoinSmart CEO Justin Hartzman, who gives an EOY prediction of $60,000, agrees that the next halving will push both prices and adoption harder.

“[By 2030,] Bitcoin supply will be dwindling down, and the supply crunch is going to kick up demand and push price and mainstream adoption,” Hartzman says.

Wave Financial senior trader Justin Chuh gives a lower-than-average EOY prediction of $56,000, but expresses confidence in Bitcoin as the “tried-and-true safe haven” of digital assets:

“As crypto assets continue to spring up, most will ultimately fail, and funds will eventually rotate back to Bitcoin as the tried-and-true safe haven and store of wealth. Investors in alt coins ultimately must have some faith in cryptocurrencies. But when their flavor of the day fails, hopefully they realize only some of the digital assets in existence will actually accomplish what they need.”

Panelists like Thomson Reuters technologist and futurist Joseph Raczynski and Arcane Crypto analyst Vetle Lunde, who give EOY predictions of $75,000 and $120,000, respectively, attribute their predictions to the move toward the institutionalization of Bitcoin.

“We’re standing in the midst of the institutionalization of Bitcoin,” Lunde says. “More funds are joining the space, the first country has adopted bitcoin as legal tender, and we have several exchange-listed companies now owning Bitcoin. I believe this trend will continue onwards.”

However not everyone is as bullish. University of Canberra senior lecturer John Hawkins, who is among the most bearish and gives an EOY prediction of $20,000, thinks that countries adopting Bitcoin will actually have a negative impact on its price:

“I’m assuming El Salvador adopting it as legal tender puts a floor for a while. But after the price has dropped a lot, they may remove the legal tender status.”

Trade the Chain cofounder Ryan Gorman gives a prediction just below the panel average at $60,000 per BTC by EOY. According to Gorman, prices will not likely surpass previous highs in the near future. However, he does think that “some of the more outlandish price predictions we’ve seen are entirely plausible on a long enough time horizon.”

Is Bitcoin in a bear market?

Bitcoin has roughly halved in value from its all-time high earlier this year, currently hovering around $30,000. Yet despite recent news of Bitcoin entering a “death cross,” whereby BTC’s 50-day trend line fell below the 200-day moving average, the market is not moving toward a bear market, according to the majority (62%) of panelists. However, 17% say we are, and the remaining 21% are uncertain.

Quantum Economics foreign exchange and crypto market strategist Imran Yusof and Allnodes CEO and founder Konstantin Boyko-Romanovsky, say that the death cross is nothing more than a mere indicator of current conditions and doesn’t necessarily predict what’s to come.

“I don’t believe that BTC and the crypto market are entering a severe bearish run. The death cross is a predictor of bear markets in the traditional sense of the word, and a long-term predictor on top of it all, Boyko-Romanovsky says.

“Of course, the price of BTC will surely jump up and down, but it would be worth keeping in mind that BTC is not a stock, and the crypto market is a different type of market. And even in regular markets, the death cross is not a definite prediction for long-term bear market conditions.”

Finder cofounder Fred Schebesta says that a death cross would typically be an indicator for a bearish market, but such isn’t the case for Bitcoin:

“While we are currently bearish, announcements from large players could very quickly move the market out of this bear trend — and invalidate the concern of a death cross. It’s like a game of chicken: Large institutions want to buy lower by letting the bear market continue. However, the longer they wait, the more they risk that another beats them to the chase.”

Banz Capital CEO John Iadeluca expects the price of Bitcoin to fall further, explaining, “While I don’t believe the death cross alone is indicative of a bear market, historically BTC prices have repeatedly continued to fall further than its first dip in weeks after death cross signals.”

Bitbull Capital COO Sarah Bergstrand says the market is simply experiencing a retail flush, rather than heading toward a bear market.

“We don’t see a complete lack of buying interest at the moment, nor do we see fundamentals becoming irrelevant, as they do in a bear market,” explains Bergtrand. “For now, we believe the market has had a retail flush and a consolidation is underway.”

Decred international operations lead Jonathan Zeppettini says that while 20% market drops are typically indicative of bearish conditions in traditional markets, the same cannot be said for crypto:

“Crypto is still so young and volatile that 20% moves can easily happen on a weekly basis. I’d really look more toward broad market psychology to gauge whether we’re in a bear. A steep decline, as we’ve currently experienced, followed by a long period of sideways (or further down) action would cause sentiment to shift bearish for most.”

For Imran Yusof and CoinFlip founder and chief advisor Daniel Polotsky, prices would need to drop further and stay there for a considerable time before we considered it a bear market.

“$34,000 is still well above the 2017 all-time high, and higher than all subsequent prices until last December (which was only six months ago!). The price has been lower than $34,000 per coin for a vast majority of Bitcoin’s existence, so I would not consider this a bear market,” Polotsky says.

Yusof furthers this idea, saying:

“There should be a sustained lack of buying interest. In the case of Bitcoin, the price should drop below $25,000 and stay there — i.e., there should be a sustained interest to take profit above $25,000 and a lack of interest to buy. I don’t think either Bitcoin scenarios will happen at the same time. Hence, I don’t think we are in a bear market.”

How low will BTC go in this cycle?

We asked the panel how low they expect BTC to fall in this cycle before we start to see prices increase. Our panel expects BTC to drop as low as $25,112 per BTC, an average of forecasts from 23 panelists who answered this question.

Both University of Western Australia associate professor Lee Smales and MarketOrders COO Sukhi Jutla predict that the price of Bitcoin will drop to $15,000 within the year.

Jutla attributes her prediction to recent negative news surrounding Bitcoin coupled with the UK FCA’s ban on Finance, stating that this sends “a clear signal to investors that they don’t feel this type of currency is safe … this sentiment will further create negative ripple effects on the downward movement of the price.”

Smales goes so far as to say that we may potentially enter a long-term bear market brought on by threats of regulation and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs):

“I think we are potentially entering a long-term bear market for cryptocurrency prices. There is an increasing threat of regulation, and also central bank digital currencies are moving closer at a much faster pace than previously thought. Blockchains and cryptocurrencies that are able to provide other uses (e.g., Ethereum) will be the out-performers going forward.”

Panelists UCL School of Management associate professor Jean-Philippe Vergne and Trade the Chain research analyst Nicholas Mancini predict that Bitcoin will drop to as low as $28,584 and $30,000, respectively, but state that the miner exodus from China could provide greener pastures for the coin.

Mancini put it this way:

“Negative news around China’s ban spooked the market and forced institutional buyers back into their holes. We are now seeing hash rate bottom, and Chinese miner transfers slow down to early 2020 levels.

This in combination with sentiment finding a bottom, along with price, means that Bitcoin should be heading to greener pastures now that we have news of big buyers looking at crypto again. We are bullish from the low of $28,584.”

Bitcoin price predictions for 2025 and 2030

While there may be some medium term price depreciation, the panel predicts that by December 2025, the price of BTC will go up to $318,417. This is 61% higher than the panel’s end-of-2025 prediction in December 2020, but 12% lower than that in April.

Chuh sees the price of Bitcoin on an upward trend, predicting BTC will end 2025 at $210,000 and 2030 at $400,000, with halving events and inflation taking prices upward.

“Halving events and inflation along the way to 2025 and 2030 will likely trigger the larger upside moves,” Chuh says. “Prices are likely to be continuously driven by supply and demand, less availability for a wider group of users.”

Panelists predict that by December 2030, the price of Bitcoin will go up to a whopping $4,287,591 per BTC. However, the average is skewed by outliers – when we look at the median price prediction, the 2030 price forecast comes down to $470,000.

ZebPay Co-CEO, Avinash Shekhar says higher rates of cryptocurrency adoption will put upward pressure on Bitcoin's price.

"Presently, the overall acceptance of Bitcoin contributes to a small percent of the world population. The growing acceptance will impact the popularity and the utility of bitcoin. It'll be unfair to price bitcoin against fiat when that happens and hence, bitcoin will have its own intrinsic value in the future."

Will Bitcoin replace fiat currency?

54% of the panel thinks hyperbitcoinization - the moment that Bitcoin overtakes global finance - will happen by 2050. 29% think it will happen as soon as 2035 and an additional 20% by 2040. Meanwhile, one panellist (2%) thinks it will happen but on a much longer timeline and 44% of panelists don't expect hyperbitcoinization to ever occur.

With El Salvador becoming the first country to use Bitcoin as legal tender and Venezuelans using it as a means of beating hyperinflation, we asked the panel about the use of Bitcoin in developing countries specifically.

55% of panelists think Bitcoin will become the currency of choice in developing nations – a third of panelists (33%) say it could happen within the next 10 years, while another 21% say it will, but not for at least 10 years.

Meanwhile 33% say it will never happen, and the remaining 12% say they're unsure.

Coinmama CEO Sagi Bakshi sees a dominance of Bitcoin happening in the near future.

"All eyes on El Salvador now — some mocking, some crossing fingers," Bakshi says. "I am sure that their use case will be a great example of innovation and fast penetration. Financial services will be built on top of a public ledger, and the naysayers will be surprised."

Amber CEO Aleks Svetski agrees that it could become a trend we see take effect in the near future.

"The momentum will only pick up. But the beauty is also that these broken nations will transform faster than major nations as Bitcoin undermines the nation state model," Svetski explains.

CryptoCompare director James Harris shares a similar sentiment.

"We think this is a trend that could find real momentum, quickly," he says.

University College Dublin lecturer Paul J. Ennis says he can see it happening, but it's more likely to happen further down the line.

"I can envision a world where Bitcoin is used by populist governments to challenge and undermine the dominant economic forces in our world, but more as a bargaining tool than because they are true believers," he says.

Bitcoins sustainability challenge

However a major barrier to Bitcoin adoption is environmental concerns as the industry's expanding carbon footprint becomes harder to ignore. Nearly everyone on the panel (93%) says environmental concerns will have an adverse impact on Bitcoin price, however just how significant this will be is contested.

Nearly one in three (31%) say Bitcoin's energy intensive proof-of-work model will have either a significant or very significant impact on prices. Close to a third (31%) say it will have a moderate impact and a further 31% a marginal impact.

However when asked if Bitcoin should move to a more environmentally friendly Proof-of-Stake model, the majority (55%) said no. Just under a quarter (24%) said yes and 21% said they were unsure.

Most panelists said Bitcoin couldn't even move to Proof-of-Stake if it wanted to. 66% say the Proof-of-Work model is necessary evil, compared to the 34% who say Bitcoin could move to Proof-of-Work.

Buy, sell or hodl?

It's the time to buy Bitcoin, say just over half the panel (55%), while 38% say hodl and just 7% say sell. This weighting is similar to that of our April report, when 49% said it was the time to buy, 39% said hodl and 12% said sell.

PhD candidate at University of Saskatchewan Ajay Shrestha says it's the time to buy. While Shrestha thinks BTC will be worth just $50,000 by the end of the year, he also thinks BTC will increase to $300,000 by the end of 2030.

Senior lecturer at Brighton Business School Paul Levy is more tempered in his forecasts and says it's time to hodl for now. He thinks BTC will increase over the next 10 years, though not substantially from its recent all-time highs.

"There will be a steady but not dramatic increase. Much depends on the stability of the wider global economy and the development of alternative, more regulated cryptocurrencies," Levy explains.

Meanwhile, associate professor at University of New South Wales Elvira Sojli thinks it's the time to sell, predicting BTC to be worth just a fraction of its current value by the end of 2030, with a forecast of $100.

Meet our panel

What's coming up in Bitcoin's roadmap?

Bitcoin is an open-source project and, as such, doesn't have an official roadmap. However, there are a few key challenges and developments coming up for Bitcoin in the months ahead.

One of the best-known is the Lightning Network. Currently in the testing stage, the Lightning Network is designed to solve Bitcoin's problems of slow transaction speeds and high fees. A payment network layered on top of the Bitcoin blockchain, Lightning Network could potentially have a big influence on the usability of Bitcoin, but the exact effects it will have remain to be seen.

Bitcoin's competition

The cryptocurrency sphere is crowded and becoming increasingly competitive all the time. If you're thinking of buying Bitcoin, it's important to be aware of the influences (both positive and negative) that the actions of competitors could have on the price of Bitcoin. Some of the main competitors to consider include:

• • Ethereum (ETH). Launched in 2014, Ethereum is a decentralized platform where developers can build and deploy applications. Ether is used to pay transaction fees and services, and at the time of writing (2/26/18), it was the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
  • Ripple (XRP). Ripple offers both a payment network (RippleNet) and a cryptocurrency (XRP), and it aims to allow banks and payment providers to send fast and secure transactions around the world. It's one of the top five cryptocurrencies in terms of market capitalization, and you can find out more about how it stacks up in our Bitcoin vs. Ripple comparison.
  • Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Created in August 2017 following a hard fork of Bitcoin, BCH is designed to offer faster and cheaper transactions than BTC. It has since cemented its place as one of the top 10 currencies by market capitalization.
  • Dash (DASH). Built with a focus on fast and anonymous transactions, Dash is widely traded on a variety of cryptocurrency exchanges.
  • Litecoin (LTC). Commonly referred to as "the silver to Bitcoin's gold," Litecoin was founded in 2011 and designed to provide faster transactions than Bitcoin. It's also one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization at the time of writing.

Bottom line

If you're considering buying Bitcoin (BTC), the most important points to remember are to do your research and to familiarize yourself with all the risks involved. Though this digital currency has delivered substantial returns to its early adopters, that's no guarantee of future growth.

If cryptocurrencies can continue their push into the mainstream and achieve widespread acceptance, not only among consumers but also from governments around the world, this could mean good things for Bitcoin. And if the scalability issues facing the Bitcoin blockchain can be successfully overcome, there seems to be potential for future growth.

However, don't forget that the cryptocurrency sphere is increasingly crowded, and Bitcoin is sure to face plenty of threats to its title as the world's No. 1 cryptocurrency from a host of well-organized and professionally backed competitors. Watch this space to see how it all unfolds.

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Disclaimer: Cryptocurrencies are speculative, complex and involve significant risks – they are highly volatile and sensitive to secondary activity. Performance is unpredictable and past performance is no guarantee of future performance. Consider your own circumstances, and obtain your own advice, before relying on this information. You should also verify the nature of any product or service (including its legal status and relevant regulatory requirements) and consult the relevant Regulators' websites before making any decision. Finder, or the author, may have holdings in the cryptocurrencies discussed.