Features writer
Jeffrey Gogo
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Fact Checked by
Elena Bozhkova
Key Takeaways:
- Bitcoin’s recent slump has made 2025 price calls of $250,000 from industry leaders look remote.
- Analysts say BTC could retreat toward $60,000 as momentum weakens and broader risk sentiment softens.
- The pullback has unsettled investors who had bet on continued gains after this year’s highs.
As Bitcoin fell below $85,000 this week, bullish calls from high-profile crypto figures such as Arthur Hayes and Matt Hougan that the price would soar to $250,000 by the end of 2025 now look like a distant dream.
Instead, the top cryptocurrency risks dropping to $60,000, as Cryptonews reported. Bitcoin has foundered amid global macro uncertainty, weaker ETF inflows and panic selling, crashing 33% from its October high to $84,553 on Dec. 1.
Bitcoin has clawed back some of those losses, rising above $93,000 as of this writing, spurred by expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve will end quantitative tightening at its policy meeting on Dec. 10 – 11.
Hayes, who co-founded BitMEX crypto exchange, insisted recently that Bitcoin was still on track to $250,000 by year-end. But analysts say many of the assumptions prompting such “bold predictions” have broken down.
“The $250K calls were largely anchored in expectations of broad macro-liquidity expansion at the time: a Fed pivot, accelerating rate cuts, and increasing dollar liquidity,” said Alexandr Kerya, vice president of product at crypto platform CEX.io, in an interview with Cryptonews.
“Hayes pointed to Treasury-refill dynamics and the end of institutional deleveraging as catalysts for risk assets. The assumptions were mostly about timing, expecting liquidity to return faster than it ultimately did.”
The Fed did not start cutting interest rates until September, months later than what analysts had hoped for. Policymakers have also remained cautious for most of 2025, as inflation stayed above the long-term target of 2%, in part due to tariffs.
At the same time, institutional exchange-traded fund flows have become a source of volatility rather than support, according to MEXC chief analyst Shawn Young. In November alone, U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs saw more than $3.4 billion in outflows, he said, weakening attempts at a BTC rally.
“The forecasts were built on the assumption of a clear and specific macro liquidity backdrop,” Young told Cryptonews. “Most of these factors never materialized, which is why Bitcoin is far from the predicted number.”
Maturing Market Limits Influence of ‘Oracles’
In April, Maelstrom chief investment officer Arthur Hayes suggested that Bitcoin could benefit from President Trump’s trade wars, who earlier that month had announced his so-called reciprocal tariffs on nearly 200 countries.
“Bitcoin trades solely based on the market expectation for the future supply of fiat,” Hayes wrote in a Substack article at the time.
“If my analysis of the Fed’s major pivot from quantitative tightening to quantitative easing for treasuries is correct, then Bitcoin hit a local low of $76,500 last month [March], and now we begin the ascent to $250,000 by year-end,” he added.
Hayes was in good company. Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan, American author Robert Kiyosaki and Michael van de Poppe, CIO at MN Fund, all predicted that Bitcoin would reach $200,000 – $300,000 by year-end. Bitcoin diehard Samson Mow was more bullish, forecasting a price of $1 million in 2025.
Analysts say, although crypto industry leaders continue to influence short-term sentiment among retail traders, their impact on the broader market is starting to fade because Bitcoin is now driven more by macro events.
“With ETFs in the mix,” Kerya said, “larger players can run more complex strategies that create volatility retail traders often misinterpret as full trend reversals. Markets don’t care about someone’s timeline.”
Kerya, who self-describes as a “Bitcoin maximalist”, said influencers are useful for shaping narratives that pull in liquidity from new crypto holders, but “veterans who’ve lived through multiple cycles are harder to sway.”
“The reality is that influencer audiences churn quickly. Each cycle brings new participants who initially treat high-profile figures like oracles, then mature and move on. They’re replaced by the next wave of beginners.”
MEXC analyst Young said part of the reason for the missed predictions is due to the institutionalization of Bitcoin trading. ETF arbitrage, derivatives hedging and sensitivity to events taking place in the wider economy have overshadowed the retail-driven narratives that dominated past cycles.
“BTC’s price direction is now far more sensitive to macro policy, global liquidity conditions, ETF investors’ positioning, and index fund decisions than to celebrity commentaries,” Young detailed, adding:
“In a maturing market like Bitcoin’s, narratives spread fast, but institutional capital allocators ignore the headline noise and follow the data.”
When $250,000 Bitcoin?
Analytics firm CryptoQuant warned in a Nov. 20 report that Bitcoin could drop to between $60,000 and $80,000 through the end of December if the Fed keeps interest rates unchanged at its policy meeting next week.
The report came as odds for a third successive rate cut fell to 39% last month after the U.S. government shutdown in October led to the cancellation of that month’s jobs report and delay of two months of labor data.
Those odds have since climbed back up to 87%. Young said Bitcoin could drop to $60,000 if liquidity conditions do not improve. The Fed’s decision on interest rates will determine whether the cryptocurrency stabilizes or faces deeper losses, he added.
“If the Fed keeps interest rates steady and corporate and index rebalancing continue to create supply pressure, Bitcoin could see a deeper drawdown into the $60,000-$70,000 range.”
But a more supportive monetary environment could lead to a rebound.
“If rate-cut expectations materialize and other liquidity tailwinds emerge, the market could rebound quickly towards $100,000, driven by renewed risk appetite and stronger ETF demand,” Young said.
He noted that investors are now watching macro liquidity signals, ETF and institutional flows and order book depth more closely than optimistic predictions from crypto industry ‘royalty.’
“These indicators are far more meaningful in determining the correct market direction than any headline price targets, no matter how confident or high-profile the source is.”
Kerya believes Hayes’ $250,000 prediction “still looks possible”, just not in 2025. It will happen “in the long-term,” driven by mainstream adoption and technological advances, he said without providing a specific timeline.
“Nothing fundamentally changed,” the CEX.io executive said. “The technology keeps improving. The price action is noise driven by macro, ETF flows, and leverage flushes.”
https://cryptonews.com/exclusives/bitcoin-slump-leaves-arthur-hayes-cos-250k-predictions-in-ruins/
