Bitcoin (BTC): Novogratz Admits He Was Wrong

Galaxy CEO Mike Novogratz has admitted that he was wrong about his 2025 prediction, previously thinking Bitcoin would end the year at $150k due to an improving regulatory environment. Instead, sentiment remains “decidedly negative”.

“If you had asked me, I would have said 2025 is going to be a great year for Bitcoin… we’re going to end the year at 150 [thousand]. We’re sitting here at about 88,000 as we’re speaking. So I totally got that wrong,” he said.

“Cortisol bellies”

Novogratz describes the current crypto market as being in a “cortisol” state rather than a “testosterone-fed” bull market. Traders are anxious

“There’s a great book… called The Hour Between the Dog and the Wolf. And he talked about the psychology of a bull market, which is all testosterone fed, and the psychology of a bear market, where it’s cortisol… In a bear market… traders get these little look like beer bellies, right? Cortisol bellies… that’s the market we’ve been in in crypto for the last, you know, three months.”

A major reason for the loss of momentum was the “flash crash” on October 9th (referred to as a Black Friday event). Novogratz notes this was psychologically and financially damaging to retail investors.

The crypto mogul believes that the market will remain choppy and move sideways.

The leading cryptocurrency needs to break above $100,000 in order to be able to regain a bullish narrative, but this will be difficult due to call sellers capping the upside.

Infrastructure developments

Despite price stagnation, there is massive optimism regarding infrastructure. Novogratz has specifically mentioned neo-banks and tokenization. “There’s no bear market in building crypto infrastructure,” he noted.