Representations of cryptocurrency Bitcoin are seen in this illustration taken Nov. 25, 2024.
Dado Ruvic | Reuters
After a blistering rally in bitcoin this year, crypto investors and industry executives told CNBC, they’re expecting the flagship cryptocurrency to hit new all-time highs in 2025.
In December, the world’s largest cryptocurrency broke the highly-anticipated $100,000, setting a record high price above that. That came after Donald Trump — who ran on a prominently pro-crypto policy platform — secured a historic election win in November.
Trump’s imminent return to the White House has boosted sentiment surrounding crypto with many industry executives and analysts expecting him to promote a more favorable regulatory environment for digital assets.
During his election campaign, Trump vowed to replace incumbent Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler, who has taken aggressive legal actions against various crypto firms. Gensler agreed to step down from the SEC in 2025.
The ETF approval was widely viewed as a key moment for the cryptocurrency as it broadens its appeal to more mainstream investors.
The other key moment in 2024 was the halving, an event that takes places every four years and reduces the supply of bitcoin onto the market. This is typically very supportive for bitcoin’s price.
These developments helped move crypto past the narrative of an industry marred by scandal. That was the dominant theme of 2023 as two of crypto’s most prominent figures — FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried and Binance’s Changpeng Zhao — both received prison sentences over criminal charges.
This year, bitcoin has more than doubled in price. The token is widely expected to see even more positive price momentum in 2025 — with several industry watchers predicting a doubling in value to $200,000.
CoinShares: $80,000-$150,000
James Butterfill, head of research for crypto-focused asset manager CoinShares, told CNBC that he sees prices of both $150,000 and $80,000 being on the cards for bitcoin in 2025.
Butterfill said in the long term it wouldn’t be “unreasonable” to expect bitcoin to become worth about 25% of gold’s market share — up from about 10% currently. That would equate to a price of $250,000.
But he doesn’t see that happening next year. “Timing of this is very difficult though and I don’t expect this to occur in 2025, but it will head in that direction,” Butterfill told CNBC via email.
He said that it is “likely” bitcoin could hit both $80,000 and $150,000 during the course of the year.
Butterfill’s $80,000 call, if hit, would be a result of Trump’s promised pro-crypto policies not materializing.
“Disappointment surrounding Trump’s proposed crypto policies and doubts about their enactment could prompt a significant market correction,” Butterfill said.
Next year, Butterfill expects a favorable U.S. regulatory environment to be the primary driver supporting bitcoin prices.
In 2023, CoinShares forecast bitcoin at $80,000 in 2024.
Matrixport: $160,000
Matrixport, a crypto financial services firm, said bitcoin could hit $160,000 in 2025.
“This outlook is supported by sustained demand for Bitcoin ETFs, favorable macroeconomic trends, and an expanding global liquidity pool,” Markus Thielen, head of research at Matrixport told CNBC by email.
Bitcoin is known to be very volatile with the potential for corrections of between 70% and 80% from all-time highs. Thielen said the drawdowns in 2025 will be “less pronounced.”
“Bitcoin’s growing base of dip buyers and robust institutional support is expected to mitigate severe corrections,” Thielen said.
Matrixport predicted in 2023 that bitcoin would hit $125,000 in 2024.
Galaxy Digital: $185,000
Alex Thorn, head of research at crypto-focused asset manager Galaxy Digital, sees bitcoin crossing $150,000 in the first half of the year before reaching $185,000 in the fourth quarter.
“A combination of institutional, corporate, and nation state adoption will propel Bitcoin to new heights in 2025,” Thorn wrote in a research note shared with CNBC.
“Throughout its existence, Bitcoin has appreciated faster than all other asset classes, particularly the S&P 500 and gold, and that trend will continue in 2025. Bitcoin will also reach 20% of Gold’s market cap.”
Galaxy predicts U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded products will collectively cross $250 billion in assets under management in 2025.
The firm expects next year will also see five Nasdaq 100 companies and five nation states add bitcoin to their balance sheets or sovereign wealth funds.
Standard Chartered: $200,000
Geoffrey Kendrick of Standard Chartered is calling for a doubling in price for bitcoin. The bank’s head of digital assets research said in a note earlier this month that he expects bitcoin to hit $200,000 by the end of 2025.
Standard Chartered expects institutional flows into bitcoin to “continue at or above the 2024 pace” next year.
Bitcoin inflows from institutions have already reached 683,000 BTC since the start of the year, the bank noted, via U.S. spot ETFs that were largely purchased by MicroStrategy, a software firm and effective bitcoin proxy.
Kendrick said bitcoin purchases by MicroStrategy should “match or exceed its 2024 purchases” next year.
Pension funds should also start including more bitcoin in their portfolio via U.S. spot ETFs next year thanks to anticipated reforms from the incoming Trump administration to rules on so-called “TradFi” (traditional finance) firms making investments in digital currencies, he added.
“Even a small allocation of the USD 40tn in US retirement funds would significantly boost BTC prices,” Kendrick noted. “We would turn even more bullish if BTC saw more rapid uptake by US retirement funds, global sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), or a potential US strategic reserve fund.”
Carol Alexander: $200,000
Carol Alexander, professor of finance at the University of Sussex, sees $200,000 bitcoin as a possibility next year.
“I’m more bullish than ever for 2025,” Alexander told CNBC, adding bitcoin’s price “could easily reach $200,000 but there are no signs of volatility reducing.”
“By the summer I expect that it will be trading around $150,000 plus or minus $50,000.” Alexander clarified she doesn’t actually own any bitcoin herself.
Explaining her rationale, Alexander said that supportive U.S. regulation will boost bitcoin, however, a lack of regulation on crypto exchanges will continue to drive volatility due to highly-leveraged trades shooting prices up and down.
Alexander has a history of correctly calling bitcoin’s price. Last year, she told CNBC that bitcoin would hit $100,000 in 2024, which it did.
Bit Mining: $180,000 – $190,000
Youwei Yang, chief economist at Bit Mining, is predicting bitcoin will hit a price of between $180,000 to $190,000 in 2025 — but he’s also cautious of potential pullbacks in price.
“Bitcoin’s price in 2025 is likely to see both significant upward momentum and occasional sharp corrections,” Yang told CNBC. “In moments of market shocks, such as a major stock market downturn, bitcoin could temporarily drop to around $80,000. However, the overall trend is expected to remain bullish.”
Factors underlying an anticipated bitcoin rally in 2025 include lower interest rates, support from Trump, and increased institutional adoption.
“Based on these dynamics, I predict Bitcoin could peak at $180,000 to $190,000 in 2025, aligning with historical cycle patterns and the growing mainstream adoption of crypto,” Yang said.
Nevertheless, Yang also expects next year to bring a number of “corrections” for bitcoins price, too.
Risks to the downside include U.S.-China tensions, global capital market disruptions, potential unexpected restrictive measures, and possible delays to the Fed rate-cutting cycle.
Last year, Yang forecast bitcoin would hit $75,000 in 2024.
Maple Finance: $180,000 – $200,000
Sid Powell, CEO and co-founder of centralized finance platform Maple Finance, is targeting a price of between $180,000 and $200,000 for bitcoin by the end of 2025.
“If you look historically when we saw gold ETFs come in, the inflows in the first year increased dramatically in subsequent years — and I think we can expect to see that with the bitcoin ETFs,” Powell told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.”
“I think we will see higher inflows in subsequent years as bitcoin and indeed crypto becomes a core asset allocation for institutional asset managers,” Powell added.
Another factor Powell sees boosting bitcoin’s price is the anticipation of a bitcoin strategic reserve in the U.S.
Still, Maple Finance’s boss is mindful about market pullbacks. “I think you’ll of course see corrections — crypto remains a cyclical industry,” Powell told CNBC.
In previous market cycles, bitcoin has risen wildly over the course of a few months before plummeting sharply in value.
Take the previous cycle, for example: in 2021, bitcoin rallied to nearly $70,000 as more and more investors piled in but the subsequent year, the token plunged to less than $17,000 on the back of a series of major crypto company bankruptcies.
However, Powell stressed that the 70% to 80% drawdowns bitcoin has seen in cycles past are unlikely in 2025 “because there is more of a buffer from those institutional inflows into the sector.”
Nexo: $250,000
Elitsa Taskova, chief product officer of crypto lending platform Nexo, is more bullish on bitcoin’s 2025 prospects than the general consensus.
“We see bitcoin more than doubling to $250,000 within a year,” Taskova told CNBC, adding that in the longer term — as in, over the next decade — she sees the entire crypto market capitalization surpassing that of gold.
“These projections align with ongoing trends and social markers: increasing recognition of Bitcoin as a reserve asset, more Bitcoin and crypto-related exchange-traded products (ETPs), and stronger adoption,” Nexo’s product chief said.
Supportive macroeconomic conditions, such as easing of monetary policy from the world’s major central banks, is likely to boost bitcoin, she added.
“The Federal Reserve’s balancing act – managing interest rates and inflation while avoiding stagnation – will be pivotal,” she said, cautioning that on the flipside, persistent inflation could also prompt a hawkish pivot.
“As the U.S. leads in crypto-related capital deployment, rate decisions and inflation dynamics will likely remain key influences on bitcoin’s price in 2025.”
It’s milestone month for the exchange-traded fund industry.
Actively managed ETFs now have more than $1 trillion in assets under management, according to independent research firm ETFGI.
That’s roughly the market cap of Berkshire Hathaway, Saudi Arabia’s gross domestic product and the value of 121 New York Yankees franchises.
The ETF Store’s Nate Geraci thinks it will grow even bigger due to the appetite for new active investing strategies.
“It’s interesting for an industry where the roots are passively managed products. That’s what the industry was built on,” the firm’s president told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week. “It’s interesting to see active ETFs getting all of the attention right now.”
Geraci finds most of the flows are going into “much more systemic strategies,” including a combination of passive and aggressive.
“When you look at the growth in the number of actively managed ETFs out there … these aren’t what you necessarily think of as traditional active,” he added. “It is products like options-based income ETFs [and] buffer ETFs.”
Actively managed ETFs now comprise almost one-tenth of the ETF industry, according to VettaFi’s Kirsten Chang.
A flying taxi displayed at the China Telecom booth at SNIEC in Shanghai, on June 26, 2024, during the opening of Mobile World Congress 2024.
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Flying taxis will become a viable method of transportation in China in the next three to five years, according to a senior executive at Ehang, a company that makes autonomous aerial vehicles (AAVs).
The prediction by Ehang’s Vice President He Tianxing comes days after the company became the first company, along with its joint venture partner Hefei Heyi Aviation, to obtain a certificate to operate “civil human-carrying pilotless aerial vehicles” from the Civil Aviation Administration of China.
Ehang said the certification clears the way for commercial operations of its vehicles, allowing for paid human-carrying services and any other low-altitude use cases the company develops.
At first, Ehang’s AAVs will be used for tourism, with passengers able to ride along designated routes in Guangzhou and Hefei by the end of June, He told CNBC in an interview translated from Mandarin.
The company will gradually explore air taxi services as its tourist operations progress. He named Hefei and Shenzhen as examples of some of the first cities expected to get air taxi services.
Ehang’s EH216-S, which received the certification, is a fully electric, pilotless two-seater aerial vehicle that features 16 propellers, according to Ehang’s website. It has a maximum design speed of 130 kilometers per hour, with a maximum range of 30 kilometers.
He expects to get certifications to operate in additional cities this year and next, with the second set of locations for tourist operations expected to include Zhuhai, Shenzhen, Taiyuan, Wuxi, Wenzhou and Wuhan.
For the forthcoming Hefei and Guangzhou locations, he declined to share the price per ride but hoped it would be reasonable enough to encourage more people to try out the pilotless aerial vehicle.
The experience should be “just like riding in a car,” added He, noting that no helmet or parachute is required. He said the initial length of rides offered by the company would vary from around three minutes to 10 minutes.
When asked about global markets, He said overseas partners had actively reached out since news of the certification, and he expected Ehang could expand overseas in the next few years.
Early lead
According to technology analysts, China’s allowing commercial use of passenger AAVs signifies its innovation and leadership in transportation and mobility.
“This is a major development and shot across the bow from China showing technology innovation is accelerating,” said Dan Ives, global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities.
China has already established itself as a global leader in electric vehicles and autonomous driving. Flying taxis, meanwhile, represent “one of the next frontiers for the auto and tech industry,” said Ives, adding that China already has created a clear lead in that space.
Beijing first released rules for unmanned aircraft flight — vehicles without a pilot on board — in June 2023. The U.S., on the other hand, has yet to roll out comparable regulations.
Instead, Washington’s Federal Aviation Administration last year unveiled general rules for “powered-lift” vehicles, which includes some electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircrafts.
eVTOL encompasses electric-powered aircrafts designed to carry passengers and take off and land vertically without the need for runways. However, the FAA has focused on those that are manually piloted.
Tu Le, founder of auto industry consultancy Sino Auto Insights, told CNBC that the U.S. has been falling behind China and even the EU in eVTOLs due to this lack of favorable policies, chalking it up to overregulation, lobbying from competing industries or “just plain politics.”
Meanwhile, China has been backing eVTOL technology as part of its “low-altitude economy,” the development of which has become a major policy goal. The term refers to economic activity taking place in airspace below 1,000 meters, well under the around 9,000 meters most commercial planes cruise around.
In addition to flying taxis and other eVTOLs, examples of the low-altitude economy include unmanned drones for delivery and helicopter-operated air shuttle routes.
The term was recently included in China’s annual work report for 2025, with the government promising to promote its development. Beijing has also committed to boosting consumption in the low-altitude economy, notably in low-altitude tourism, air sports, and consumer drones, as part of a special action plan in March.
Already, China’s low-altitude economy is one of its fastest-growing industries, with it projected to be worth 1.5 trillion yuan ($205 billion) by 2025, and almost double that by 2035, according to a report by the research group Hurun.
Competition ramping up
Sino Auto Insights’ Le also credits China’s progress in the eVTOLs sector to a high degree of domestic competition.
China has seen a major ramp-up of prospective players in recent years, as companies prepare for a high-tech future that was once confined to science fiction.
Firms investing in the space have included electric vehicle makers like GAC, Geely and Xpeng.
Xpeng’s flying car division, Xpeng Aero HT, last week, completed a maiden flight of its “Land Carrier” product — a van paired with a 2-man quadcopter, the company told CNBC.
Xpeng Aero HT said it will hold a pre-sale launch event and complete the construction of its mass production factory in the second half of the year. It also aims to obtain certifications for airworthiness by the end of the year.
Last month, XPeng Motors CEO He Xiaopeng told state media the company plans to mass-produce flying cars by 2026, as China’s low-altitude economy is boosted by supportive policy.
However, despite China leading in eVTOL regulation, it is expected to face competition from international companies also investing in and building various types of air vehicle technologies.
Some of those companies include international companies like America’s Boeing, France’s Airbus, and the Brazilian firm Embraer, which have taken steps to take advantage of future flying car demand.
Numerous startups, including Joby Aviation, Archer, and Wisk, in the U.S. are also planning on launching various commercial air taxi services over the next few years.
According to Wedbush’s Ives, the global electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft business could grow into a $30 billion market opportunity over the next decade.
Chinese national flags flutter on boats near shipping containers at the Yangshan Port outside Shanghai, China, February 7, 2025.
Go Nakamura | Reuters
BEIJING — China’s reaction to new U.S. tariffs will likely focus on domestic stimulus and strengthening ties with trading partners, according to analysts based in Greater China.
Hours after U.S. President Donald Trump announced additional 34% tariffs on China, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce called on the U.S. to cancel the tariffs, and vowed unspecified countermeasures. The sweeping U.S. policy also slapped new duties on the European Union and major Asian countries.
Chinese exports to the U.S. this year had already been hit by 20% in additional tariffs, raising the total rate on shipments from China to 54%, among the highest levied by the Trump administration. The effective rate for individual product lines can vary.
But, as has been the case, the closing line of the Chinese statement was a call to negotiate.
“I think the focus of China’s response in the near term won’t be retaliatory tariffs or such measures,” said Bruce Pang, adjunct associate professor at CUHK Business School. That’s according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese-language statement.
Instead, Pang expects China to focus on improving its own economy by diversifying export destinations and products, as well as doubling down on its priority of boosting domestic consumption.
China, the world’s second-largest economy, has since September stepped up stimulus efforts by expanding the fiscal deficit, increasing a consumption trade-in subsidy program and calling for a halt in the real estate slump. Notably, Chinese President Xi Jinping held a rare meeting with tech entrepreneurs including Alibaba founder Jack Ma in February, in a show of support for the private sector.
The policy reversal — from regulatory tightening in recent years — reflects how Beijing has been “anticipating the coming slowdown or even crash in exports,” Macquarie’s Chief China Economist Larry Hu said in a report, ahead of Trump’s latest tariff announcement. He pointed out that the pandemic-induced export boom of 2021 enabled Beijingto “launch a massive regulatory campaign.”
“My view stays the same,” Hu said in an email Thursday. “Beijing will use domestic stimulus to offset the impact of tariffs, so that they could still achieve the growth target of ‘around 5%.'”
Instead of retaliatory tariffs, Hu also expects Beijing will focus on still using blacklists, export controls on critical minerals and probes into foreign companies in China. Hu also anticipates China will keep the yuan strong against the U.S. dollar and resist calls from retailers to cut prices — as a way to push inflationary pressure onto the U.S.
China’s top leaders in early March announced they would pursue a target of around 5% growth in gross domestic product this year, a task they emphasized would require “very arduous work” to achieve. The finance ministry also hinted it could increase fiscal support if needed.
About 20% of China’s economy relies on exports, according to Goldman Sachs. They previously estimated that new U.S. tariffs of around 60% on China would lower real GDP by around 2 percentage points. The firm still maintains a full-year forecast of 4.5% GDP growth.
Changing global trade
What’s different from the impact of tariffs under Trump’s first term is that China is not the only target, but one of a swath of countries facing hefty levies on their exports to the U.S. Some of these countries, such as Vietnam and Thailand, had served as alternate routes for Chinese goods to reach the U.S.
At the Chinese export hub of Yiwu on Thursday, businesses seemed nonchalant about the impact of the new U.S. tariffs, due to a perception theiroverseas competitors wouldn’t gain an advantage, said Cameron Johnson, a Shanghai-based senior partner at consulting firm Tidalwave Solutions.
He pointed out that previously, the U.S. had focused its trade measures on forcing companies to remove China from their supply chains and go to other countries. But Chinese manufacturers had expanded overseas alongside that diversification, he said.
“The reality is this [new U.S. tariff policy] essentially gives most of Asia and Africa to China, and the U.S. is not prepared,” Johnson said. He expects China won’t make things unnecessarily difficult for U.S. businesses operating in the country and instead will try harder to build other trade relationships.
Since Trump’s first four-year term ended in early 2021, China has increased its trade with Southeast Asia so much that the region is now Beijing’s largest trading partner, followed by the European Union and then the U.S.
The 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) joined China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand in forming the world’s largest free trade bloc — the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) — which came into being in early 2022. The U.S. and India are not members of the RCEP.
“RCEP member countries will naturally deepen trade ties with one another,” Yue Su, principal economist, China, at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said in a note Thursday.
“This is also partly because China’s economy is likely to remain the most — or at least among the most—stable in relative terms, given the government’s strong commitment to its growth targets and its readiness to deploy fiscal policy measures when needed,” she said.
Uncertainties remain
The extent to which all countries will be slapped with tariffs this week remains uncertain as Trump is widely expected to use the duties as a negotiating tactic, especially with China.
“Unlike some of the optimistic market forecasts, we do not expect a US-China bilateral grand bargain,” Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura, said in a note Thursday.
“We expect tensions between these two mega economies to worsen significantly,” he said, “especially as China has been making large strides in high-tech sectors, including AI and robotics.”