In an interview with CNBC on Monday, Fred Thiel, CEO of Marathon Digital Holdings (NASDAQ: MARA), shared his bullish outlook on Bitcoin. He emphasised the rising institutional curiosity and a good regulatory surroundings that might propel the BTC worth to new highs.
Thiel dismissed the influence of the latest Bitcoin halving, stating, “I believe the halving had zero impact.” As an alternative, he attributed the Bitcoin worth surge to the introduction of spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) earlier this yr. “In January, you had the ETFs that launched that drove unexpectedly the beginnings of some institutional curiosity,” he famous.
Establishments Simply ‘Ready To Purchase Up’ Bitcoin
Whereas the preliminary investments in these ETFs had been predominantly retail, Thiel noticed a shift as institutional gamers started coming into the market. “You then began seeing some pension funds beginning to purchase into ETFs and into Bitcoin-related equities like our inventory or MicroStrategy‘s,” he added.
The CEO highlighted the potential influence of political developments on the BTC market. “With the election, , Donald Trump ran on a platform that may be very pro-Bitcoin—Bitcoin strategic reserve, mining within the US, and so on.,” Thiel mentioned. He advised that such a stance might result in a extra supportive regulatory surroundings in the USA.
Associated Studying
“What that’s ended up driving is a big perception that unexpectedly the regulatory surroundings for Bitcoin and crypto will get a lot better, that the US will double down and actually spend money on Bitcoin probably,” he defined. This anticipated shift might strain different nations to undertake related insurance policies, fostering international adoption.
Thiel additionally identified the strong market dynamics absorbing promoting strain from long-term holders. “Each single Bitcoin that had been bought was in revenue, and also you began long-term holders who had held Bitcoin for years starting to liquidate somewhat bit to take some income,” he mentioned. Regardless of this, he emphasised the market’s resilience: “There’s a lot demand out there that it simply retains soaking it up.”
Addressing considerations about Bitcoin’s infamous volatility, Thiel asserted that vital drawdowns could be a factor of the previous, at the very least within the close to time period. “The volatility of previous years, the place you’ll hit a peak after which see a 20% or 30% drawdown, I believe are gone, at the very least for the near-term future,” he acknowledged. He believes that institutional buyers are poised to enter the market aggressively. “I believe what we’re going to see is basically establishments simply ready to purchase up Bitcoin,” Thiel predicted.
Associated Studying
He cited latest actions by main firms to help his outlook. “You take a look at MicroStrategy—they’re [issuing a] $3 billion bond; they’re on the market shopping for Bitcoin very aggressively,” he mentioned. “We raised a $1 billion bond at 0% coupon the identical week as Michael Saylor did, and we went out and bought a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} of Bitcoin.” Thiel emphasised that this pattern is gaining momentum: “A lot of individuals are beginning to do that now.”
Concluding his insights, Thiel expressed confidence in Bitcoin’s upward trajectory. “Anyone who’s promoting is promoting right into a market the place there’s ample demand, and I believe that for the foreseeable future we’ll proceed to see Bitcoin worth transfer up—, up and down, up and down—however usually the pattern shall be upwards,” he mentioned.
Notably, Cantor Fitzgerald not too long ago adjusted its worth goal for MARA from $33 to $42. The revision follows Mara Holdings’ completion of a considerable $1 billion convertible notice providing final week. From the $980 million raised, Mara used $199 million to purchase again $222 million in principal of its 2026 convertible notes. With $781 million in proceeds remaining, the corporate plans to buy extra Bitcoin, leveraging a method much like MicroStrategy (MSTR).
Nevertheless, not like MicroStrategy, which focuses purely on capital market maneuvers to build up Bitcoin, Mara additionally operates the biggest publicly-traded Bitcoin mining operation by hash fee. Analysts at Cantor spotlight this as a key differentiator with bullish potential.
At press time, BTC traded at $92,531.
Featured picture from YouTube, chart from TradingView.com