Bitcoin price at $150K in 2024 is 'base case' — Tom Lee

Bitcoin bull Lee sees BTC price action doubling its current all-time highs before the end of the year.

Bitcoin (BTC) is on track to hit $150,000 in 2024, says veteran crypto market commentator Tom Lee.

In an interview on CNBC earlier this month, Lee, a managing partner and head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors, came out with his latest bullish BTC price prediction.

Tom Lee reiterates $150,000 BTC price target

Bitcoin has no shortage of optimistic price targets this week, but some observers are focusing on the long term.

Lee is among them, revealing that Fundstrat sees a “base case” six-figure BTC price this year.

“Bitcoin’s still, we think, early in an upcycle, so the idea that it could get to $150,000 this year is still within our base case,” he said.

Such a price would be double current all-time highs, these hitting in March before a retreat to $56,000 at the start of this month.

Explaining his reasoning, Lee pointed to macroeconomic changes coming from the United States.

The Federal Reserve’s language on interest rate cuts — a key issue watched by risk-asset traders — is “more dovish than where the market is.”

“I think that’s the process of why markets are recovering,” he suggested.

Lee is well known in crypto circles for his BTC price predictions, not all of which have come true. In the long run, he implied to followers on X (formerly Twitter) this week, being long BTC has paid off.

“LESSON: being intellectually stubborn is costly,” he wrote while discussing Fundstrat’s investment thesis.

BTC/USD traded at around $70,000 at the time of writing on May 23, per data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, up 15% month-to-date.

Risk assets face uncertain timing

The latest estimates from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool meanwhile show that markets only believe a cut is the most likely option at the Fed’s September meeting — not earlier.

Related: ETFs buy 3X new BTC supply — 5 Things to know in Bitcoin this week

The latest minutes of the May meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMC, released this week, additionally stressed the idea that no policy direction was off the table.

“Participants discussed maintaining the current restrictive policy stance for longer should inflation not show signs of moving sustainably toward 2 percent or reducing policy restraint in the event of an unexpected weakening in labor market conditions,” it stated.

“Various participants mentioned a willingness to tighten policy further should risks to inflation materialize in a way that such an action became appropriate.”

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.