On Thursday (5 July 2018), Thomas Lee, a Managing Partner and the Head of Research at Fundstrat Global Advisors said during an appearance on CNBC’s Fast Money that despite earlier in the day lowering his year end price target for Bitcoin to over $20,000 instead of $25,000, he remained bullish on Bitcoin (BTC). 

[Please note that the price of Bitcoin at the time of this interview was around $6,497.]

The host, Melissa Lee, started by asking Tom if he still stood by his $25,000 prediction from earlier in the year. Tom replied:

“We still think Bitcoin can reach $25,000 by the end of the year, or something like that. But it's still a huge move from where it is now… If you look at the history of Bitcoin, there are a couple of reasons why $25,000 is still possible. One is… Bitcoin moved from $7000 to $10,000 in a couple of weeks. But from a historical perspective, over any six month period, 35% of the time, it's more than tripled… So, I don't think it's out of the question that Bitcoin can make a big move from here, and I would just point out what makes it unusual today is that Bitcoin is trading below mining cost, and six months forward… now, this is of course roughly ten years of history… Bitcoin has had a positive return in nearly 100% of the instances whenever it has traded below mining cost. So, I think the risk-reward is very asymmetrically positive for Bitcoin.”

Melissa then asked Tom to Play the crypto version of the American party game “Would You Rather”, meaning that he had to choose from several cryptocurrency pairings which one of the pair he would rather have in his portfolio.

Bitcoin (BTC) vs. Ether (ETH)

Tom explained he would rather have Bitcoin: “The investment case for Bitcoin is a little easier because it is a store of value and it’s got a long history. Ethereum has some competition. We still like it, but it has competition.”

Bitcoin (BTC) vs. Litecoin (LTC)

Tom said: “We’ll take Bitcoin again… I’d rather have Bitcoin over Litecoin.”

XRP vs. Bitoin Cash (BCH)

Tom answered: “I’d pick Bitcoin Cash over Ripple [he should have said “XRP”] because… I think Bitcoin Cash has some unique features relative to Bitcoin. So, there are some merits to owning it.”

And for a final bonus round, Tom was asked whether he would rather have Bitcoin or U.S. equities till the end of the year. Tom said: “The S&P can do mid to high single digit gain… and I think Bitcoin can easily do way beyond that… So, I’d rather own Bitcoin… but, of course, it is riskier.”

 

Featured Image Credit: “Bitcoin Crypto Coin Stock Photo” by “Crypto360” via Flickr; licensed under “CC BY 2.0”