(Kitco News) Despite the ongoing bear market in crypto, Bitcoin is still heading to $500,000 in the next five years, said Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz.
While many analysts debate whether the recent shift in sentiment in the crypto space is a fleeting one, bullish voices are starting to get more prominent, with Novogratz forecasting a $500,000 price target for Bitcoin in the next five years.
"This is a story of two things — it is about adoption and global economics. And while this is a bump in the road in adoption. It is certainly not a U-turn," Novogratz said during the Bloomberg Crypto Summit. "We continue to see institutions … that haven't gotten involved yet, who see this as an opportunity."
He added that there is no massive surge back into Bitcoin just yet, but it is coming.
"[Institutions] are not diving with two feet right now because people working at institutions are a little more cautious. But once we get that balance — equilibrium and start a new narrative. They will be back," he explained.
At the end of the day, it will come down to central banks' inability to put fiscal prudence back in order, Novogratz pointed out.
"I don't see when I look at the global landscape how fiscal prudence gets put back in a box. We have a debt-to-GDP over 140%. [That] almost never ends without a debt restructuring or hyperinflation. We had 9% inflation this year. People get very angry when you have high inflation," he said.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading above $23,000, up 8% on the day and 16.3% on the week. Despite the rally, it is still down 66% from its record highs posted in November.
Other cryptocurrencies were also seeing a strong relief rally, with Ethereum up nearly 42% on the week, Solana up 35% on the week, Cardano up 18% on the week, and Polygon up 64% on the week.
Ethereum's jump coincided with some clarity around the upcoming Merge.
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And Bitcoin is starting to react positively to negative news, but technical chart signals remain cautious, according to analysts.
"After a rally over the weekend, bitcoin has risen back into its consolidation phase below resistance from the 50-day (~10-week) MA near $23.2K. The consolidation phase has seen no noteworthy improvement in our intermediate-term gauges, so we remain intermediate-term bearish," Fairlead Strategies founder and managing partner Katie Stockton said in a note. "We expect a test of the 50-day MA and cloud-based resistance to fail, based on our short-term indicators."
