Wall Street “bear” Tom Lee doubled down on his prediction that the bitcoin price will reach $25,000 by 2022, shrugging off concerns about the recent market downturn.

Lee, a managing partner at Fundstrat, reaffirmed this long-term price target in an interview with CNBC’s “Fast Money.” He bases his prediction on the increasing trend to view bitcoin as a store of value and a hedge against inflation, forecasting that it will capture some of gold’s market share. He also stated that younger investors–particularly those under age 30–believe that bitcoin makes “perfect sense” as an investment vehicle.

Despite the recent China fueled-pullback, he contradicted claims that bitcoin is in a bubble, such as those recently made by JP Morgan chief executive Jamie Dimon. Noting that research indicates there are only about 300,000 bitcoin wallets that hold the equivalent of $5,000 or more, he said that calling bitcoin a bubble is comparable to analysts who called iPhone adoption a bubble after 500,000 consumers purchased one within the first four days of its 2007 release.

The strategist–who foresees bearish performance from the stock markets in the near future–has previously written that he anticipates bitcoin will receive increasing attention from institutional investors, particularly since LedgerX and CBOE holdings have received regulatory approval to begin providing options and futures trading. He has also suggested that central banks might begin to view cryptocurrency differently if the bitcoin market cap can break through $500 billion, which would require a bitcoin price of around $30,000.

At present, the global average bitcoin price is $3,581, which translates into a $59.3 billion market cap. On Western exchanges, it is almost universally trading above $3,600, with BTC/USD topping out at $3,759 on GDAX. However, bitcoin continues to trade far below the average on Chinese exchanges, which should be unsurprising given recent events. At the time of writing, both OKCoin and Huobi valued BTC/CNY at about $3,030.

Josiah Wilmoth

Cryptocoins News