Our Bitcoin Guide: Why BTC Could Hit $250,000 In 2025
Editor’s Note: This report was written by David G. Zeiler, a longtime colleague, technology expert and former crypto miner. Dave spent decades as a reporter, with a focus on tech — which introduced him to crypto. In 2011, he established his own Bitcoin-mining venture — and ultimately became a nationally known chronicler of all things crypto. His work has appeared in numerous publications, and he’s appeared as a panelist at cryptocurrency conferences. Here’s his newest forecast for Bitcoin.
Dave’s Bitcoin Outlook
2025 Price Targets
After 15 tumultuous years, 2024 is shaping up as a “coming-of-age” moment for Bitcoin (BTC).
Multiple events happening this year underscore that Bitcoin is not only here to stay, but is being embraced as a valid asset class by the institutional players on Wall Street.
Nothing illustrates this more than the January arrival of 10 new Bitcoin ETFs that include offerings from such financial heavyweights as Blackrock and Fidelity.
It’s a dramatic start to what figures to be a busy year for the No. 1 digital currency.
There’s a lot to talk about, so I’ve segmented this guide into five parts:
Part 1: The launch of Bitcoin ETFs.
Part 2: The Bitcoin halving.
Part 3: Crypto regulations.
Part 4: Bitcoin price prediction.
Part 5: And the strategies for investing in Bitcoin.
Let’s dive in.
Part 1: Meet “The Bitcoin 10”
On January 10, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved 10 Bitcoin ETFs, which began trading the following day (see chart below). An existing Bitcoin futures ETF, the Hashdex Bitcoin ETF (DEFI), applied to convert to a spot Bitcoin ETF but its approval was delayed.
A key aspect of a spot Bitcoin ETF is that it must buy Bitcoin on the open market (as needed) – to back the shares that fund investors bought. On down days, when more shares are sold than bought, they must sell.
The mass SEC approval (finally) ended the decade-long struggle to bring a spot Bitcoin ETF to market.
That long struggle made it clear that the SEC (especially during the leadership of Chairman Gary Gensler) was holding the spot Bitcoin ETF proposals to an unreasonable standard. In comments that accompanied its dozens of denials, the SEC cited the same justification: The Bitcoin markets were susceptible to manipulation.
It was a badly flawed argument – and one that conveniently ignored the market manipulation that was rampant in other SEC-regulated markets.
But the SEC wouldn’t budge … until it was backed into a corner.
In a savvy move that leveraged the SEC’s unfair treatment of spot Bitcoin ETFs, crypto asset manager Grayscale Investments filed a lawsuit in 2022.
Way back in 2013, the New York-based Grayscale bypassed the SEC by launching its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) as a hedge fund for accredited investors. In 2015, the shares started trading on the OTC Markets, making the fund available to retail investors.
When Grayscale then tried to convert GBTC to a spot Bitcoin ETF – and the SEC refused to approve it – the company sued. The argument: Since the SEC had already approved ETFs based on Bitcoin futures, the regulator was acting “arbitrarily and capriciously” in denying Grayscale’s proposal.
The court agreed with Grayscale, leaving the SEC with no choice but to approve the GBTC proposal – as well as all the other spot Bitcoin ETF applications.
Now these ETFs have opened the money spigot into the Bitcoin space.
How the Bitcoin ETFs Have Changed the Game
While it’s true that investors have always been able to buy Bitcoin outright – using a crypto exchange such as Coinbase or Kraken to do so – it meant those folks needed to be comfortable with the technology. And investors also had to understand how and where to securely store those digital assets – thorny issues, to be sure. Assets stored on exchanges can be seized or stolen. On the other hand, self-custody exposes the Bitcoin owner to risks such as losing the password key.
For most investors, an ETF is a much easier way to buy and hold Bitcoin.
You can buy the ETFs through your brokerage like any other ETF or stock – and just hold it in your account. Custody becomes the ETF issuer’s responsibility (check the chart for each ETF’s custodian).
The ETF structure opens the Bitcoin opportunity up to a larger set of institutional investors by removing several barriers. Many institutional players had reservations about risk and liquidity. Well, the ETFs solve that.
And some other institutional investors also faced restrictions, meaning their investment “charters” didn’t permit them to own assets not traded on an approved and regulated market.
"A spot bitcoin ETF would streamline exposure for traditional players who have been slower to enter the ecosystem, allowing trillions in institutional capital to come off the sidelines," Diogo Monica, president and co-founder of Anchorage Digital, told Investor’s Business Daily. "We expect to see major institutions — including hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds and registered investment advisors — drive ETF inflows."
And if the forecasts I’m studying are anywhere close to accurate, the first few years that follow those ETF approvals will be dramatic ones.
In a January 2024 report, crypto research firm CCData projected first-year inflows of $22 billion into spot Bitcoin ETFs. Similarly, Van Eck, one of the firms with a Bitcoin ETF offering, projected two-year inflows of $40.4 billion across all funds.
Crypto fund Galaxy Digital’s forecast inflows of $14.4 billion the first year, $26.5 billion by the second year, and $38.6 billion in the third year.
But here’s the forecast that really got my attention: Last October, former BlackRock managing director Steven Schoenfield, who’s now the CEO of MarketVector Indexes, said during a panel discussion at a London crypto conference that his company sees an inflow into Bitcoin ETFs of $150 billion to $200 billion over three years.
Whatever the dollar figures end up being, we’ll soon see that inflows will have a huge impact on the price of Bitcoin.
And that’s especially true when you combine it with the digital currency’s second big event of 2024 – the halving.
Part 2: Why the Bitcoin Halving Matters
The next Bitcoin halving is expected to occur in mid to late April. The precise day and time isn’t known, because the halving will occur when the blockchain hits block number 840,000. (The network mines a block every 10 minutes on average; each block contains a record of the most recent Bitcoin transactions. The miner who mines that block earns the reward.)
Previous halvings have been table-setters for parabolic Bitcoin rallies, which typically start about six to 12 months after the event. The 2016 halving, which cut the reward from 25 BTC to 12.5 BTC per mined block, took place July 9 of that year. The subsequent rally accelerated nine months later, in April, with a peak price above $19,000 in December.
The 2020 halving happened May 9, reducing the block reward to 6.25 BTC. The Bitcoin price began to take off six months later, and peaked just a few hundred dollars shy of $69,000 in November 2022.
This coming April, the reward for mining a block will be cut from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.
Practically speaking, a halving means the supply of new bitcoins to the market is also cut in half. So the 900 new bitcoins per day miners generate now will drop to just 450. That’s not much compared to Bitcoin’s average daily trading volume of about 120,000 BTC. But the effect is cumulative.
After one month, the market will have 13,500 fewer bitcoins to trade than it would have before the halving. After six months, the gap rises to 81,000 bitcoins.
Even a modest tightening of supply can have a significant impact, particularly because so much of the existing supply rarely change hands. Many veteran Bitcoiners continue to hold for the long-term and aren’t willing to sell despite higher prices. (In the lexicon of crypto, these folks are HODL investors – an acronym for “hold on for dear life.”)
As of mid-December, blockchain analytics firm Glassnode has data showing that about a third of existing BTC (31.4%/6.15 million BTC) hasn’t “been active” (i.e. hasn’t moved from one address to another) in more than five years. More than two-thirds (70.3%/13.77 million) hasn’t been active for at least a year.
In other words, we’re talking about a de facto shortage with these dormant coins amplifying the halving’s impact on supply – and, as luck would have it, just as the spot Bitcoin ETFs are juicing demand.
The Takeaway: This is creating a “perfect storm” for a massive Bitcoin rally.
There’s just one possible fly in the ointment – new crypto regulations that could make trouble for Bitcoin investors.
Part 3: Enemies and Allies: The Looming Crypto Regulations Battle
There are two parts to the regulatory landscape: You’ve got the agencies, like the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC); and you’ve got Congress, which of course can make laws with respect to digital assets.
The track record of the regulators (especially that of the SEC), is downright hostile to crypto and Bitcoin. As I noted above, the SEC only approved the spot Bitcoin ETFs after the Grayscale lawsuit win left it with no other choice.
SEC Chair Gensler clearly wasn’t happy having his hand forced. Two days before the ETFs were approved, he posted a thread on X (formerly Twitter) describing crypto assets as “exceptionally risky,” and added that companies offering crypto services “may not be complying with applicable law.”
And Gensler didn’t stop there, noting that: “Fraudsters continue to exploit the rising popularity of crypto assets to lure retail investors into scams.”
Gensler demonstrated his disdain for crypto in other ways. He often threatens crypto companies with enforcement actions, while refusing to provide any path for them to comply with the rules they’re supposedly violating.
The good news is that others within the SEC – mainly Commissioner Hester Pearce – strongly disagree with the agency’s anti-crypto stance.
If you ask me, I suspect Gensler is stewing over being forced to approve the spot Bitcoin ETFs and now may be pondering additional draconian enforcement actions against crypto companies – and especially exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken. Such events, if they significantly restrict the companies’ ability to do business, could trigger short-term selloffs.
And then you have Congress, which is again a mixed bag.
On the one hand there is U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who seems to despise crypto even more than Gensler. Her “Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act” would impose Bank Secrecy Act rules on such crypto participants as miners and wallet providers – burdening them with requirements they can’t possibly fulfill. It would effectively make criminals of most crypto users.
Fortunately, Warren’s bill doesn’t appear to have enough support to pass. And crypto does have numerous allies in Congress – so many in the U.S. House of Representatives that they formed a “Congressional Blockchain Caucus.”
In the Senate, political opposites Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) co-sponsored the pro-crypto “Responsible Financial Innovation Act” last year. While the legislation has not progressed, it was well-received by the crypto community. Even if it doesn’t pass, it could provide a framework for future crypto lawmaking.
If somehow the Lummis-Gillibrand bill (or something like it) were to pass this year – or in 2025 – it would be a significant positive catalyst for Bitcoin and crypto in general.
Even if no crypto bills pass in 2024, it appears the crypto allies outnumber the crypto enemies – and those allies tend to be younger. Sooner or later, as the anti-crypto folks retire or are voted out, the pro-crypto side will prevail.
That brings us to everyone’s favorite part of a Bitcoin article – the price predictions.
Part 4: Where the Bitcoin Price Is Headed in 2024
Before I get to my 2024 Bitcoin price predictions, let’s look at the price action in the weeks following the launch of the spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Within the first few days of the multiple launches, Bitcoin actually went down. That was mainly due to outflows from GBTC; all the other Bitcoin ETFs have experienced pretty consistent inflows.
A lot of investors bought GBTC in the past because it traded at a discount to Bitcoin. Many are taking profits. Grayscale’s offering also has a much higher fee than the other ETFs. GBTC saw outflows of $1.17 billion in just the first three days of ETF trading.
That pattern has held steady since then. By February 27, the total outflow from GBTC rose to $7.59 billion. Much of that cash was plowed into the other low- or no-fee ETFs.
Overall, though, more money has been flowing into – than out of – the ETFs. The net inflow (after subtracting the GBTC outflow) as of February 27 was $6.73 billion.
And that incoming flood of cash has ignited Bitcoin. By the end of February – so a mere seven weeks from the ETF approvals – BTC had zoomed about 33%, eclipsing $60,000.
Over the next 12 months to two years, the positive catalysts I’ve discussed here – the inflows from the new ETFs coupled with the reduction in supply from the April halving – will drive Bitcoin to new highs and beyond.
Remember, the Bitcoin ETFs will keep attracting a steady stream of capital over the coming months and years. Consider the first gold ETF, approved back in 2004. Gold exploded … sparking a seven-year rally that pushed prices up 350%.
Bitcoin won’t double overnight. But I do expect the price to keep climbing over the next year.
I actually suspect the peak for this cycle will occur in late 2025, but for this year I see Bitcoin at least exceeding its all-time high of $68,789.63, and, in all likelihood, breaching $100,000 by December.
In November, digital asset manager CoinShares published research forecasting the price impact of various levels of capital inflows into the Bitcoin ETFs.
Inflows of $6.27 billion would drive Bitcoin to $81,660. We’ve already surpassed that inflow target, suggesting Bitcoin is undervalued in the mid $60,000s. CoinShares said inflows of $12.54 billion would send BTC to $127,604.
The highest level on the chart shows inflows of $31.35 billion, pushing Bitcoin past the $250,000 level – to $265,437. That’s more than a quarter-million dollars each. It may seem over-optimistic, but it’s not out of the question. We could even see it happen before the end of 2025.
Speaking of which, I see Bitcoin in 2025 extending a rally I expect to start in the latter part of this year (based on the timing of the halving). If Bitcoin follows the four-year cycle it has followed up to this point, the price will peak in the fourth quarter of 2025 (the previous peak occurred in November 2021).
My view is that Bitcoin will, at minimum, get to the $135,000 to $140,000 range in the next 12 months to 24 months. The midpoint would be about $195,000. The maximum for this cycle would be somewhere in the $250,000 to $275,000 range.
Part 5: Investing in Bitcoin in 2024
While some investors will continue to shun Bitcoin as too dangerous – even with the arrival of the spot ETFs – the risk-reward ratio is very compelling.
While some retail investors have used Bitcoin proxies in recent years, such as MicroStrategy Inc. (MSTR) or miners Riot Platforms Inc. (RIOT), HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd. (HIVE), and Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. (MARA), the new spot ETFs are pure plays.
At the same time, more aggressive investors should resist the urge to bet the farm. A reasonable allocation is about 1% to 5% of your portfolio, depending on your risk tolerance.
As for which of the new ETFs to focus on, I’d say stick with the big names. They’ll have the most liquidity and are the least likely to run into issues down the road. They’re also attracting the lion’s share of inflows. Here I’m talking about Blackrock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), or Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust (FBTC) … each of which has low fees and dominant inflows in the early days.
I’d avoid the WisdomTree Bitcoin Fund (BTCW), the Valkryie Bitcoin Fund (BRRR), and the VanEck Bitcoin Trust (HODL) as they’ve attracted far fewer dollars and are unlikely to survive a future consolidation of spot Bitcoin ETFs.
The market does not need 10 spot Bitcoin ETFs. With consolidation, the smallest/weakest will fail.
I’d also avoid GBTC because of the investors racing to get out of it, not to mention the high fees.
And I wouldn’t wait long to make a move.
Bitcoin has already made a strong move higher. When the next major rally really gets going in the fall, prices will accelerate quickly. Investors may get a lucky opportunity or two if there are any significant pullbacks – so take advantage.