The chief investment officer (CIO) of Bitwise, Matt Hougan, is leaning bullish on Bitcoin (BTC) amid the crypto king’s 20% gain over the past month.

In an appearance on the David Lin YouTube channel, Hougan says various fundamental catalysts could drive the price of Bitcoin up by over 95% from the current level in months.

“Our prediction is that Bitcoin is going to eclipse over $200,000 by the end of the year. What’s happening right now is you have a huge amount of good news in Bitcoin. You have a US strategic reserve where the government now owns Bitcoin. You have improvements on the regulatory front, you have institutional adoption.”

According to the Bitwise CIO, the prevailing macroeconomic environment has held Bitcoin back from rallying more strongly.

“You may be wondering, why aren’t prices higher? The reason is we’ve had a bunch of economic uncertainty that’s caused not just Bitcoin but all risky assets to fall. Stocks are down substantially. So the market has dipped but I think over time, as that economic volatility subsides, you’re going to see all that good news catch up to Bitcoin and it’s going to propel it to new all-time highs and indeed above $200,000 for the year.”

On factors that increase the odds of Bitcoin reaching the $200,000 price target, Hougan says,

“Bitcoin’s price is set by supply and demand, and we all know the supply, right. There will only be 21 million, we only make 165,000 new ones a year. So you have to watch the demand.

The three things to watch: are [exchange-traded funds] ETFs gaining inflows? Are corporations like MicroStrategy and Metaplanet continuing to buy Bitcoin? And are governments buying Bitcoin? If those three things happen, I think the $200,000 target is a lock.”

Bitcoin is trading at $102,695 at time of writing.

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