The year was a rough one for the digital currency. The market lost more than a trillion dollars. The price of the world's largest digital coin plummeted.
There was a wave of collapses in the industry and investors were surprised. The people who made predictions about the price of the virtual currency missed the point.
There are some market players who have stuck their neck out with price calls for what could be another volatile year.
The rising interest rates are weighing on risk assets like stocks. The FTX saga, which resulted in the arrest of the company's founder Sam Bankman- Fried in the Bahamas, is being watched by investors.
CNBC looks at some of the boldest price calls for the virtual currency in the years to come.
Tim Draper predicted that the token would be worth $250,000 by the end of the year.
The billionaire venture capitalist said in November that he was extending the prediction until mid-2023. He thinks the coin will hit the quarter-of-a-million milestone.
The dam is about to break due to the fact that women control 80% of retail spending and only 1 in 7 digital wallet are held by women
In order for it to trade at that level, it needs to rally 1,400%.
There could be reason to believe the market has found a bottom despite the depressed prices and trading volumes drying up.
He thinks that the halving in 2024 will have a good run.
Every four years, the halving occurs, in which the reward to miners is halved. Some investors think this is positive for the price of the virtual currency. Sometime in 2024, the next halving is expected to occur.
The slump in prices and rising energy costs are putting a squeeze on the power-hungry miners of the digital currency.
Some of the biggest sellers in the market are actors who accumulate huge amounts of digital currency. Most of the selling pressure on the virtual currency should be removed because miners are paying off debts.
The vice president of corporate development at Luno said that that was a good sign for the digital currency.
Ayyar told CNBC that miner capitulation has indicated major bottoms in the past. You have a number of miners either switch off their machines or need to sell more bitcoins to keep their business going.
One can assume that we are seeing a bottoming period if the market is absorbing this miner sell pressure sufficiently.
The worst is yet to come for some.
Standard Chartered said in a research note that the price of the digital currency may sink to $5,000. A 70% plunge from current prices is what the prediction would represent.
Eric Robertsen, the bank's global head of research, said that "yields plunge along with technology shares" in the nightmare scenario.
A collapse in investor confidence in digital assets is one of the reasons why more and more firms and exchanges find themselves with insufficient liquidity.
The scenario has a non-zero probability of occurring in the year ahead, and falls outside of the market consensus or our own baseline views.
In terms of his price call, veteran investor Mark Mobius did well. He predicted in May that it would fall to $20,000 when it reached $28,000.
Line chart with 365 data points.The chart has 1 X axis displaying Time. Range: 2022-01-01 00:00:00 to 2022-12-31 00:00:00.The chart has 1 Y axis displaying values. Range: 10000 to 50000.End of interactive chart.
He said that in 2022. It didn't happen. He told CNBC that he is sticking to his price call.
The investor, who made his name at Franklin Templeton Investments, told CNBC that rising interest rates and tighter monetary policy from the U.S. Federal Reserve led to his bear case for the digital currency.
The attraction of holding or buying cryptocurrencies becomes less attractive when interest rates are higher.
Carol Alexander, professor of finance at Sussex University, was off the mark with her predictions about the price of the digital currency in the future.
She doesn't think the coin could be set for gains.
Alexander said there would be more dominos from the FTX mess. She expects the price of the virtual currency to top $30,000 in the first quarter and $50,000 in the third and fourth quarter.
She told CNBC that there will be a managed bull market in the years to come.
There will be a month or two of stable prices with range bounded periods and a few crashes.
Alexander believes thatwhales will likely step in to prop up the market with trading volumes evaporating with traders on edge. Fourteen percent of the total supply is accounted for by the wealthiest 97 wallet addresses.
Some investors have stopped trying to predict the price of the virtual currency. The recent events are not good for Antoni Trenchev.
He said that there were a few major forces that interfered with the positive path of the digital currency in the early years of the 21st century.
In the past, Trenchev predicted a peak of $100,000 for the digital currency. He tried to predict the price.
Attempts to forecast the price of the virtual currency are futile according to a financial analyst.
He told CNBC that the market is so heavily driven by sentiment that it wouldn't surprise him if it was at 5,000 or 50,000.
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