Bitcoin could hit $250,000 as early as this year with technology giants such as Microsoft and Apple entering the cryptocurrency space, industry veteran and founder of the Cardano blockchain Charles Hoskinson told CNBC.
Crypto markets have been hammered amid a sell-off of risk assets stoked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs” on countries across the world. Bitcoin traded below the $77,000 mark on over the last week, but on Wednesday spiked above $82,000 as Trump dropped levies to 10% for 90 days for most countries to allow for trade negotiations.
Sill, bitcoin has fallen far from its more than $100,000 record high hit in January — even as industry players remain bullish on the cryptocurrency.
Hoskinson, who has been in the crypto industry for more than a decade and helped co-found the Ethereum blockchain, said he believes bitcoin will reach $250,000 “by the end of this year or next year.”
“What will happen is that the tariff stuff will be a dud, and that people will realize that the world is willing to negotiate, and it’s really just U.S. versus China. And a lot of people will side with us. Some people side with China,” Hoskinson told CNBC during a recording of the “Beyond The Valley” podcast on Tuesday.
“The markets will stabilize a little bit, and they’ll get used to the new normal, and then the Fed[eral Reserve] will lower interest rates, and then you’ll have a lot of fast, cheap money, and then it’ll pour into crypto.”
Hoskinson, who is also the founder of Input Output, or IOHK, made his comments before Trump’s temporary pause on full-blown reciprocal tariffs.
Hoskinson highlighted a number of reasons that could drive bitcoin to that price.
First, he pointed to there currently being more users of cryptocurrencies. Owners of cryptocurrencies rose 13% year-on-year in 2024 to 659 million people, according to Crypto.com.
Secondly, Hoskinson said that the geopolitical situation is moving from a “rules-based international order to a great powers conflict.”
“If Russia wants to invade Ukraine, it invades Ukraine. If China wants to invade Taiwan, it’s going to do that. So treaties don’t really work so well, and global business doesn’t really work so well there. So your only option for globalization is crypto,” Hoskinson said.
Third, Hoskinson said that there will be new stablecoin legislation and the Digital Asset Market Structure and Investor Protection Act will also likely get passed, which will help the crypto market. The law aims to address the regulatory treatment of various digital assets. Both bills are currently working their way through the U.S. legislative process.
Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency pegged to a fiat currency but backed with real-world assets.
The stablecoin bill in particular could lead the “Magnificent 7” companies to begin adopting the assets too, according to Hoskinson. The Magnificent 7 is a group of seven mega-cap technology stocks including Apple, Microsoft and Amazon. Stablecoins could be used by these technology giants to pay workers in different countries or even facilitate small transactions on their platforms which ordinarily would be expensive on existing payments rail, Hoskinson said. Stablecoins can be sent quickly from one wallet to another across the world.
Hoskinson said the crypto market will be “reignited” by these factors, in particular the passing of the regulation and the adoption of stablecoins by the Magnificent 7.
“[The crypto market] will stall for probably the next three to five months, and then you’ll have a huge wave of speculative interest come, probably [in] August or September, into the markets, and that’ll carry through probably another six to 12 month,” Hoskinson said.
– The conversation with Charles Hoskinson will be published in full as an episode of CNBC’s Beyond The Valley podcast soon.
