Co-founder of Fundstrat and Wall Street Strategist Tom Lee has revealed his expectations for bitcoin before the year runs out. According to a Bloomberg report, Lee revealed that he had high expectations for the digital asset, which he believes would hit the $100,000 mark by the end of the year, and added that the asset could go as high as $168,000 before the year runs out.

Lee has always maintained a bullish stance on cryptocurrencies. He had earlier stated that he expected the asset to hit $100,000 this year. Now, Lee looks to be doubling down on this prediction which he had made back in May.

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The asset’s volatility has never worried the Wall Street strategist who acknowledges the highly volatile nature of it. “I think bitcoin is hyper-volatile,” Lee told TechCheck in May. “That’s the nature of it, but that’s what creates the reward for people.”

ETFs Are The Driving Force Behind Prediction

The co-founder also explained the factors driving his price prediction for the digital asset. He drives the point back to the recent ETF approvals that bitcoin had seen recently. The first U.S. Bitcoin Futures ETF is scheduled to begin trading this week and Lee believes that the ETF approvals are the major reason behind the asset hitting the $100K price mark.

BTC price sits above $62,000 | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com

Adoption is the name of the game and the co-founder says that the Bitcoin Futures ETF will help to drive more adoption for the digital asset. The inflows which will come from this adoption will translate into a higher value for the asset.

With the newly approved Futures ETFs, Lee explains that the fund will allow more individuals to allocate a portion of their investment portfolios to crypto, and “this will drive significant new inflows.”

Getting Bitcoin Over The $100,000 Mark

Bitcoin at $100,000 is an increasingly popular prediction amongst top market participants. Although the asset had taken a significant beat-down in the market in September, most still maintained their predictions that the asset will hit $100,000 before the year runs out. The predictions have been attributed to a number of factors but the forecasts have always remained the same; the market will see BTC at $100K before the next bull market.

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Not surprisingly, Lee is not the only prominent figure who has put the digital asset at this value in Q4 of 2021. Various market analysts have put the asset at the same value by year-end. Skybridge Capital CEO Anthony Scaramucci has also said the asset will hit this price point, pointing out that as adoption grows worldwide, so will the value of BTC grow with it.

Not everyone has jumped on the bitcoin at $100,000 bandwagon though. Fidelity analyst Jurrien Timmer told CNBC that BTC could be far from hitting $100,000. The analyst believes the price will eventually hit this point but puts it on a much longer time frame. “I will note that the next (and last) time my puppy-and-demand models intersect is at around $100K in 2023 or 2024,” Timmer said.

Featured image from The Cryptonomist, chart from TradingView.com