Strategists at the leading U.S. bank JPMorgan have been crunching the numbers and comparing Bitcoin to the traditional store of value assets such as gold. Led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, the analysts suggested that Bitcoin’s current market capitalization of around $580 billion would have to rise by 4.6 times to create a theoretical price of $146,000. According to the Bloomberg report, this would match the total private sector investment in gold via exchange-traded funds or bars and coins.
Bitcoin is competing with gold for institutional investors.
JPMorgan made a similar prediction in November last year when analysts at the firm suggested that Bitcoin could rise as much as ten times as it competes with gold for institutional investors. The U.S. Bank’s latest prediction added that crowding out of gold as an ‘alternative’ currency implies a big upside for Bitcoin over the long term. However, this would be a multi-year process as a convergence in volatilities between the cryptocurrency and gold is unlikely to happen quickly, according to JPM strategists.
Bitcoin’s price could reach $146,000 this year.
Analysts at JPMorgan added, “this implies that the above-$146,000 theoretical Bitcoin price target should be considered as a long-term target, and thus an unsustainable price target for this year.” The Wall Street bank, which has had a hot and cold relationship with crypto, clearly sees a long term progression for Bitcoin prices with an increase in institutional wallets and funds such as Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust. The firm has just hit another record in terms of assets under management, which is now just shy of $23 billion. At the time of writing, bitcoin’s price is trading at just above $31,000.
