저자: CNBC · 외국인
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Bitcoin is back. The cryptocurrency rallied about 10% over the past week, despite a late-day sell-off. Let's get to Bob Pisani at the New York Stock Exchange for all the details.
Hey Bob, hello Melissa. Here's the good news: Melissa's right, bitcoin is up about 10% in the last few days, though it dropped quickly mid-day. That's a little mysterious, and it's not clear exactly what happened in the middle of the day. Some note that electronic payments company Square has withdrawn its application to get into the banking business, according to American Banker. That was a big deal back in June, when New York financial regulators granted Square the go-ahead to let New Yorkers trade cryptocurrencies on its Cash App. So today's rout may be due to concern that there could be less future volume in crypto.
There's not much good news for bitcoin recently. Last week it broke through the psychologically important 6,000 level, and it's still in a long- and even short-term downtrend. In fact, the last time there was a rally of any note was way back in April, when bitcoin went from about 7,000 to almost 10,000 in about two weeks, but it hasn't done anything on the upside since then. Some reports say volumes on some exchanges have increased in the last few days as bitcoin has come back a bit. That may be true, but a few days is a very short time horizon, and a lot of these foreign exchanges have, shall we say, questionable monitoring tools. I'm being kind when I say that.
Watch the volumes at Coinbase. That's what I do. This is the largest US-based crypto exchange. If you just look at the dollar volume, you can see that over the last few months it has been clearly declining, about 80% from the February levels to the June levels, and it's been down four months in a row. Here's what I want to see: let's see if we can at least get July levels to stop dropping below June levels and bottom out at this point. That would be a victory.
All right, Bob, thanks. Bob Pisani at the NYSE. Our next guest sent shockwaves across the crypto market when he made these comments on CNBC earlier today: bitcoin has historically traded at two and a half times its mining cost, so it's not out of the question that it could be over 20,000 by the end of the year. Bitcoin would still have to rally over 200% to reach 20,000, but the $20,000 figure was interpreted by some as a sign of bearishness. We may remember that even as bitcoin has plunged, Tom Lee has stood by his 25,000 year-end price target. Tom is back to say reports of his bearishness have been greatly exaggerated. Tom, thanks for coming back.
It did take me aback when you said over 20,000 instead of saying 25K. So do you stand by 25K?
Well, I do think it's the first time I've ever heard someone think something could triple is a bearish call, right? I may have misspoken a little. What I was trying to illustrate was that given where mining costs will be, and applying the historical average of two and a half times mining cost, that would imply a fair value over 20,000, roughly 22,000. We still think bitcoin can reach 25,000 by the end of the year or something like that, but it's still a huge move from where it is now. So you're not bearish. I get how that was completely exaggerated and taken out of context, but it doesn't sound like you're as bullish as before.
We've had Bob Sliemer on from your shop as well, and looking at the charts, you would put bitcoin up, you'll come over. I would ask him. So, 25K, past when he's at, it's going to be hard, but yeah, that's the forecast. If you look at the history of bitcoin, I think there are a couple of reasons why 25,000 is still possible. One, Bob has pointed out that bitcoin moved from 7,000 to 10,000 in a couple of weeks. From a historical perspective, over any six-month period, 35% of the time it has more than tripled. In other words, in any typical period bitcoin could triple one, two, or three times. So it's not out of the question that bitcoin can make a big move from here. What makes it unusual today is that it's trading below mining cost, and six months forward, this is only roughly 10 years of history. Bitcoin has had a positive return in nearly 100% of instances whenever it has traded below mining cost, so I think the risk/reward is still very asymmetrically positive for bitcoin.
The clock's got to start soon, though. You say six months out, and we're six months in a year, so we have success, and the challenges, of course, are that bitcoin is quite volatile and has only a 10-year history. But across its entire history, it has always been a good time to buy when it's near mining cost. I don't understand why mining cost is necessarily a floor. We've seen that with other things, like the cost of mining gold, where prices trade below that. Why is it necessarily something like a replacement cost? Why is mining cost necessarily a floor?
Well, mining represents the flow. Let's imagine bitcoin is a commodity. Mining represents the flow, because it's the block reward. In any commodity where you're looking at flow, incremental cost does actually explain or govern the price. For instance, the all-in sustaining cost of gold is effectively a tachometer, or a speedometer. Gold stocks have historically traded pretty tightly in a band of price-to-book. Bitcoin isn't a great buy when it trades one standard deviation above it, at two and a half times or more, around three and a half times. And it's actually a good buy when it's trading below one times, and it's unusual for it to trade below one times.
Okay, so you're still clearly bullish. Yes, I am, jet-lagged too. But while you're here, I want your opinion on some other coins, so we thought we'd play a little "would you rather," crypto style. I'll give you two cryptocurrencies, and you tell me which one looks like the better of the two for the rest of this year. First, I need to lag to Melfi. I know, I know, guys, to the man. Come on: Bitcoin versus Ethereum, would you rather?
Bitcoin, yeah. I think the investment case for bitcoin is a little easier because it's a store of value and has a long history. Ethereum has some competition. We still like it, but as a competitor, bitcoin versus Litecoin, I'll take bitcoin again. No offense to Charlie, our cousin Charlie, but I'd rather bitcoin over Litecoin. And we're going to end this with Ripple versus Bitcoin Cash. I'd pick Bitcoin Cash over Ripple, because in some ways Bitcoin Cash has unique features relative to bitcoin, so there are some merits to owning it.
I want to do a bonus round with you. Oh, okay. Wow. Bitcoin or US equities between now and the end of the year?
We think the S&P can do mid-to-high single-digit gains, which would get us to roughly 3,000. I think bitcoin can easily do well beyond that between now and year-end, so I'd rather own bitcoin, but of course it is riskier, so it's different from owning an equity.
Okay, Tom, thank you for joining us despite your jet lag. We appreciate it. A fun strategy. Well, I'll tell you what, I tend to agree with Karen that I have trouble with this whole essentially-the-cost-of-mining idea, because I don't really think it's a commodity. I see that target moving around. To me, bitcoin is probably range-bound, and I think we're waiting for an event of some kind that will be the catalyst. There's no question people want to come in. I think you need the retail investor back in, and retail is sidelined.
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