Bitwise CIO Says $100K Bitcoin a Difficult Prediction to Make, Calls Ethereum the 'Asset of the Year'

While there’s been an awful lot of calls for bitcoin to reach six-digits in value in 2021, as the end of the year draws closer, it doesn’t seem like $100K per bitcoin will happen. Bitwise Asset Management’s chief investment officer Matt Hougan told the press on Monday that “$100,000 by the end of the year is a difficult prediction to make.”

$100K Bitcoin Prices May Be Unattainable in 2021 — Bitwise Exec Says Next Year ‘Investors Are Going to Be Looking at Ethereum’

For a good portion of the year, many bitcoin advocates, experts, luminaries, and analysts predicted that bitcoin (BTC) would surely hit the $100K per unit range in 2021. One of the most popular forecasts belongs to Plan B, the creator of the stock-to-flow (S2F) bitcoin price model. Plan B said based on the pseudonymous analyst’s “worst case scenario for 2021 (price/on-chain based)” would be “Aug>47K, Sep>43K, Oct>63K, Nov>98K, Dec>135K.”

However, November’s price call missed and the $135K prediction looks like it will miss as well. Bitcoin would have to double in value over the next 24 days gathering a touch over 96% during that time. Plan B is not the only one that has predicted BTC could hit six-digits in USD value by the year’s end. The financial institution Standard Chartered predicted at the beginning of September that bitcoin’s value could reach $100K by the end of the year.

Yahoo Finance contributor, Javier David, said on October 21, that “suddenly, a bitcoin move to $100K doesn’t seem so farfetched.” In fact there’s a great number of analysts that have said that at some point in the future, bitcoin prices will touch the six-digit zone or $100,000 or more per unit. Speaking with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang, Bitwise Asset Management’s CIO Matt Hougan explains that bitcoin hitting $100K will be difficult in 2021. Hougan further explained that ethereum (ETH) was the “asset of the year” in 2021.

“I think as we look into 2022, we still have these fundamental drivers, the institutions we speak to every day at Bitwise,” Hougan explained. “$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 remarked.

Hougan Predicts an ‘Explosion of Activity Built on Ethereum’

As far as the second-largest crypto asset by market capitalization, ethereum (ETH), Hougan thinks 2021 was the digital currency’s year. While noting to Bloomberg’s Chang that ethereum was the “asset of the year,” Hougan also stressed that there will be an “explosion of activity built on Ethereum” next year. But investors will be looking at other smart contract blockchain networks as well, the Bitwise CIO said. Hougan added:

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.