Mike Novogratz, former hedge fund manager of Fortress Investment Group, has in his most recent interview, stated that he sees Bitcoin reaching a $40,000 valuation by the end of 2018. This follows his prediction only a week ago that Bitcoin would reach $10,000 by the end of 2017, whilst it was at the time trading at around $8,350.
Having touched $9,700 briefly yesterday before dipping, we again see it breaking that barrier today with coindesk.com recording a high of $9,867 at time of publication.
Novogratz sees his bullish price predictions as being backed by expanding interest in Bitcoin from both retail and institutional investors. With the worlds biggest Futures Exchange, CME Group, along with Cboe Options Exchange both set to launch Bitcoin futures, the doors have already been opened for Wall Street firms to enter the Bitcoin arena.
Planning to launch his own Bitcoin hedge fund he sees an influx of money poised to come not just from the US but from around the globe, looking to Asia where the Japanese Yen accounts for 62% of Bitcoin trading alone and South Korea where Bitcoin prices yesterday reached $10,000 on exchanges including Bithumb and Korbit.
However, Novogratz acknowledged that there will be price corrections along the way.
It’s going to get exaggerated on the way up. There will be 50 percent corrections. It will get exaggerated on the way down.
Volatile prices have been seen throughout the course of the history of Bitcoin with a dip earlier this month of over 20% seeing the price plunge over $2,000 in the space of 4 days from a high of $7,707 on November 8th to $5,627 on November 12th.
Whether the predictions from Novogratz come to fruition remains to be seen, although the stage is most certainly set for an intriguing time to come for both Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market as a whole. As Bob Doll, Chief Equity Strategist for Nuveen Asset Management, stated ‘With Bitcoin, why do you need the stock market?”
