Brad Garlinghouse predicts bitcoin’s growth to $ 180,000

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has made one of the most high-profile crypto predictions of the year: the analyst said that the price of bitcoin BTC $90,420.60 Mezo Wrapped BTC 0.48% Market capitalization $51.32 million VOL. 24 hours $0.54 billion could reach $ 180,000 by December 31, 2026. He made this statement during a panel discussion at Binance Blockchain Week, where he discussed the prospects of the crypto market in the coming years together with Solana Foundation President Lily Liu and Binance CEO Richard Teng.

During the event, participants expressed different assessments of the future of BTC. Richard Teng refrained from making specific predictions, emphasizing that he focuses on long-term development rather than short-term fluctuations. Lily Liu noted that she expects the price of bitcoin to rise above $ 100,000 by the end of next year. Brad Garlinghouse, on the other hand, gave the most ambitious estimate — $ 180,000 by the end of 2026, which aroused considerable interest among market participants.

The forecasts came amid one of the sharpest crypto market crashes this year. on December 1, bitcoin dropped by $ 5,000 in less than three hours, causing the market to lose more than $ 200 billion in capitalization, and liquidation of margin positions exceeded $ 700 million. The main catalyst was not an internal event in the crypto sector, but turbulence in traditional financial markets caused by the reversal of the yen curry trade strategy.

The rise in Japanese government bond yields to their highest levels since 2008 triggered a massive wind-down of transactions in which investors had been borrowing cheap yen for years to buy risky assets, such as stocks, US Treasuries, and bitcoin. When the yen began to strengthen, these positions became unprofitable, leading to avalanche-like sales and large-scale liquidations. In October, $ 19 billion worth of crypto positions were liquidated in one day, and in November alone, more than $ 3.45 billion was withdrawn from bitcoin ETFs, including $ 2.34 billion from the BlackRock fund.

Despite the panic, major players continued to buy up the asset. Blockchain data shows that whales bought about 375,000 BTC during the collapse, while miners reduced sales by almost six times — from 23,000 BTC per month to 3,672 BTC. The market is now awaiting the next decision of the Bank of Japan, scheduled for December 18. If the regulator raises the rate again, analysts do not rule out bitcoin’s drop to $ 75,000. In the event of a pause, a short-term «short squeeze» is possible with a rapid recovery to $ 100,000.