It is not hard finding Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) bulls heading into 2026. Some of the bears out there are the same voices who have been calling for a big and more permanent sell off for the past 10 years – with short-seller extraordinaire Michael Burry recently calling its valuation "the most ridiculous thing."
Some investors might not think Bitcoin is a ridiculous Ponzi scheme, like Burry, but they are not getting caught up in last fall's all time highs and expecting a repeat. Fidelity is urging caution, and thinks the prime digital currency can rise and mostly trade sideways. Galaxy Research thinks Bitcoin will have a "boring" 2026.
However, with the Federal Reserve looking to cut interest rates in 2026, and overall market sentiment for traditional securities very positive, the market is being primed for the return of $100,000-plus Bitcoin next year. Bitcoin prices are currently around $90,000, well below its peak of $126,000 in October.
Who’s Bullish?
Grayscale Investments, in its 2026 Digital Asset Outlook published this month, said 2026 will see a broadening of the Wall Street adoption theme. Grayscale's research team predicts Bitcoin to reach a new all-time high in early 2026. Bitcoin's prior peak was around $126,000.
"The current bull market has lasted more than three years, and the most recent Bitcoin halving was in April 2024, more than 1.5 years ago. Therefore, conventional wisdom among certain market participants says that Bitcoin's price likely peaked in October, and 2026 will be a challenging year for crypto returns. We expect rising valuations across all six crypto sectors in 2026, and Bitcoin could exceed its previous high in the first half of the year." – 2026 Digital Asset Outlook: Dawn of the Institutional Era by Grayscale research team, Dec. 2025.
Analysts at JPMorgan are bullish.
In a December 2025 client note, JPMorgan strategists led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou stuck with the old "digital gold" theme. Their model implies a "theoretical price of close to $170,000" in the next 6 to 12 months. In other words, if Bitcoin's market value grows to rival gold's on a volatility-adjusted basis, it could trade around $170,000 sometime in 2026, he said.
Bitcoin underperformed gold in 2025
Cathie Wood, CEO of Ark Invest, remains one of Bitcoin's most ardent bulls. Back in September 2021, she predicted Bitcoin could hit $500,000 by 2026. Her investment case is based on corporations allocating some of their cash to Bitcoin, and institutional investors holding around 5% BTC in a standard tech portfolio.
In an interview with the South Korean show Global Money Talk this month, Wood ranked Bitcoin as her top crypto holding and called it "a global monetary system, a technology, and an entirely new asset class. It’s the crypto that institutions will dip their toes into first. So Bitcoin has to be on the top of the list." She has about 12% of her tech funds in crypto.
Who’s Bearish?
Fidelity's Director of Global Macro Jurrien Timmer foresees a potential pullback in 2026. Timmer noted in late 2025 that Bitcoin's October all-time-high might have marked the top of the bull cycle, aligning with the historic halving-driven cycles in previous years. He predicts Bitcoin could enter a bear market in 2026, potentially "revisiting the $65,000 to $70,000 range" as a bottom.
As it is, Bitcoin is closer to Timmer's $70,000 price tag now than its October high.
Galaxy Digital's research team, led by Alex Thorn, said 2026 will be "one of the most difficult years to forecast" for Bitcoin.
In Galaxy's 2026 predictions report published Dec. 18, Thorn said market uncertainty was "extremely high." Bitcoin options market pricing implies equal odds of Bitcoin being $70,000 or $130,000 by mid-2026, and an even wider $50,000 low to a $250,000 high by the end of the year.
The fourth quarter saw investors selling from the peak, leading to Bitcoin's worst fourth quarter performance since 2018. BTC prices fell 22.62% so far in the fourth quarter, versus a 42% drop in 2018, according to CoinGlass data.
Burry's critique of Bitcoin, recently, fits in with his larger critique of the hype around artificial intelligence. Like the AI investor craze, led by chip maker Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), Burry said Bitcoin was "one of the biggest speculative bubbles in history," likening it to "tulip mania" – a period during the Dutch Golden Age, roughly from 1634 to early 1637, when contracts for certain rare tulip bulbs traded at extraordinarily high prices.
Thorn is a good example of the bull/bear hybrid. Bearish short-term. Bullish long term. He thinks 2026 "could be a boring year for Bitcoin. Whether it finishes at $70k or $150k, our bullish outlook over longer time periods is only growing stronger."
"I predict that Bitcoin’s days of purely parabolic growth are over," said Joel Valenzuela, a core member of the Dash DAO (CRYPTO: DSH). "We will likely see it remain a very strong asset for years to come, but I would expect most growth to be in other sectors of the crypto space next year. They have a lot of catching up to do, and offer a much greater spectrum of real-world applications," he said.
The writer owns Bitcoin via the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.
Feature Image Credit: Author
Benzinga Disclaimer: This article is from an unpaid external contributor. It does not represent Benzinga’s reporting and has not been edited for content or accuracy.
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