The CEO of blockchain investment firm Pantera Capital Management has made a bullish prediction that the cryptocurrency market could eventually expand to $40 trillion.
Speaking during a panel interview on Bloomberg Television, Pantera Capital founder and chief executive Dan Morehead described bitcoin as “a screaming buy right now.”
Bitcoin reached nearly $20,000 in December, but both it and many other cryptocurrencies experienced a volatile start to 2018 and saw prices pull back. Despite the correction, Morehead remains optimistic about bitcoin’s trajectory and believes it could reach new highs within the next 12 months.
At the time of publishing, bitcoin is trading around $9,350, according to CoinMarketCap, and is once again approaching the $10,000 threshold. Some analysts, including Saxo Bank, suggest the second quarter could mark the start of a renewed crypto bull market.
Morehead is also bullish on the total cryptocurrency market, which is currently valued at roughly $420 billion.
“We’re very bullish on the space,” he said. “We think we’re way below, maybe an order of magnitude — or two — below the real fundamental fair value of blockchain.”
Morehead explained that the $400 billion market cap could expand to $4 trillion, and that $40 trillion is “definitely possible.” He noted, however, that such growth would not happen overnight and framed it as a 10-year forecast.
Pantera Capital holds roughly 10 percent of its assets in bitcoin, but the fund is placing larger bets on Icon, a project that aims to enable different blockchains to communicate with each other without intermediaries. Morehead added that as Wall Street interest in cryptocurrencies grows, “anything that’s a $400 billion asset will not be ignored for long.”
Bold predictions like Morehead’s tend to attract attention, and he is not alone. John Pfeffer, a partner at U.K.-based Pfeffer Capital, recently suggested bitcoin could eventually replace gold and reach valuations as high as $700,000, while calling most other digital currencies “bad bets.”
While these forecasts reflect optimism among some investors about the market’s long-term potential, they should be treated cautiously. No one can predict the future with certainty, and estimates for five- or ten-year outcomes remain speculative rather than definitive.