Tom Lee Backs Down From $250K Bitcoin Year-End Target

BitMine Chair and Fundstrat CIO Tom Lee appears to have backed off from his $250K year-end target for crypto market leader Bitcoin (BTC).

Speaking in a recent interview with CNBC, Lee said that “it’s still very likely that Bitcoin is going to be above $100,000 before year-end.” He added that the crypto will “maybe even” reach a new all-time high (ATH) before the end of 2025. 

First Time Lee Has Not Predicted $250K For Bitcoin This Year

The recent interview appearance seems to be the first time that Lee has not stuck to his bullish prediction that BTC’s price would hit $250K before the end of the year. He had initially floated this price target earlier in 2024.

Lee had continued to reiterate his $250K price target for BTC through early October, which was around when the largest crypto by market cap went on to set a new ATH above $126K. However, a record liquidation event that saw $19 billion wiped out from the market just days after this peak was reached seems to have prompted Lee to revise his year-end target. 

Since that liquidation event, BTC’s price has been in a sustained downtrend. Data from CoinMarketCap shows that Bitcoin has plummeted more than 19% in the past month. The crypto king is also more than 27% down from the ATH that it had set in the first week of October. 

BTC’s price performance over the last month (Source: CoinMarketCap) 

During the downtrend, BTC had plummeted below the psychological $100K level and even below the $90K mark. However, the crypto rebounded over 4% in the past 24 hours to trade back above the $90K level at $91,318.66 as of 2:27 a.m. EST. 

BTC’s Strongest Days Still Ahead

While Lee has seemingly lowered his year-end target for BTC, he still believes that Bitcoin’s “best days are going to happen” before 2025 comes to an end. 

Lee pointed out that Bitcoin has a tendency to make the majority of its gains over a small number of trading sessions each year. He subsequently noted that the asset typically “makes its move” in just 10 days annually. 

That idea is widely shared among analysts and executives in the market. Among them is Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsely, who said back in February 2024 that while investors cannot predict when BTC will have its strong days in a year, missing BTC’s best 10 days historically means missing nearly all of its returns. 

It’s hard to pick the perfect time to buy Bitcoin.

Yesterday is a reminder.

A fantastic analysis by @fundstrat below illustrates this.

TLDR: if you miss the 10 best days of Bitcoins return each year, you miss all the return. And you don’t know when those days will be.… pic.twitter.com/vulIAapQX9

— Hunter Horsley (@HHorsley) February 28, 2024

Looking at BTC’s performance in 2024 supports the thesis. Last year, the crypto’s strongest 10 days delivered a combined return of 52%, while the remaining 355% days generated an average return of -15%. 

Lee’s Forecasts Have Fallen Short Before

If Bitcoin’s best days don’t come before the end of the year or BTC does not rally to above $100K, it will not be the first time that one of Lee’s predictions has fallen short. 

At the start of 2018, Lee predicted that Bitcoin could soar to as high as $125K by 2022, but he was off by about three years as BTC only reached this level in October this year. 

However, he has made some accurate calls over the years as well. One of them was in July 2017, when he forecasted that Bitcoin could reach $20K by 2022 in a base-case scenario and a potential high of $55K over the same period in a more bullish case. 

Bitcoin ended up soaring to as high as $20K in December 2020 and $55K in March 2021. 

Bullish Signals Emerge On BTC’s Daily Chart

Bullish technical flags have emerged on BTC’s daily chart, which could lead to a year-end rally if traders follow through.

Daily chart for WBTC/USD (Source: GeckoTerminal)

The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) line has crossed above the MACD Signal line recently, suggesting that momentum has shifted from bearish to bullish. Buyer strength is rising as well, as suggested by the increase in Relative Strength Index (RSI) readings. 

BTC could therefore have the backing needed to overcome the $94K resistance level and reach $105K soon. However, a rejection might lead to a drop to $82.6K.

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