In 2025, bitcoin showed how spectacularly wrong price forecasts can be

• Despite optimistic forecasts, bitcoin ended the year significantly below its peak, marking its first full-year loss since 2022.
• Bitcoin experienced a flash crash on Oct. 10, dropping nearly 10% shortly after hitting a record high.
• Predictions for bitcoin's price in 2025 varied widely, with many analysts failing to anticipate the market's downturn.

2025 is drawing to an end with few crypto market stories more dramatic than the Oct. 10 “flash crash," when bitcoin BTC$88,097.62 plunged $12,000, or nearly 10%, in minutes. The meltdown triggered more than $19 billion in liquidations in just 24 hours, followed by a trader-circulated “cascade warning” and a staggering $500 billion wiped from total crypto market capitalization.

That set the scene for an extended slide that's seen the largest cryptocurrency drop to more than 30% below the peak $126,223 value it set just six days earlier. This painful drop is likely to leave it posting the first full-year loss since the crypto winter of 2022.

The year began on a more optimistic note, with bitcoin price predictions ranging from dream-like fantasies to more conservative targets that, at times, seemed within reach. Then it all changed after the Oct. 10 crash. Many predictions, from seasoned analysts to outspoken evangelists, shared one thing in common: They didn’t age well.

Let's leave aside the long-term forecasts that soared as high as $1 billion by 2038 from Jurrien Timmer, Fidelity's global head of macro, or the undated $700,000 if institutional adoption reached scale from BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. Even the more restrained estimates now seem somewhat overblown.

Some forecasts weren’t just bullish; they were explosive.

Samson Mow, CEO of bitcoin technology company Jan3, predicted in February that bitcoin would reach $1 million by the end of 2025 in a “violent” upward move fueled by the collapse of fiat currencies.

He received support from Blockstream CEO and founder Adam Back, arguably one of the most respected personalities in bitcoin, who, in April, also reportedly said he believed BTC could reach $500,000 to $1 million by end-2025. His bullish thesis was driven by ETF inflows, institutional buying and limited supply.

He wasn't the only one. Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya also forecast $500,000 by October.

Even some of the more conservative estimates for the year-end price target surpassed the all-time high.

Among them were JPMorgan analysts, who in early October, before the crash, raised their year-end forecast to $165,000, basing it on a growing embrace of the "debasement trade," a rise in investor demand for alternative stores of value.

Even after the crash, Michael Saylor, the executive chairman of bitcoin treasury company Strategy (MSTR), helped keep bulls' hopes alive with his Oct. 28 “expectation” that BTC would be “about $150,000 by the end of this year”. Strategy, the holder of the most bitcoin among publicly traded companies, bought another $1 billion of BTC on Dec. 15, increasing its total holdings to 671,268.

Of course, they weren’t alone. Throughout 2025, a flood of price predictions poured in from across the crypto landscape, most of which serve only as reminders of just how hard forecasting can be.

There was the forecast for a first-quarter peak of $180,000 from VanEck’s digital asset research team, more than $50,000 above the actual high. Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan had said BTC would reach $200,000 in 2025, backed by what he called “the most bullish setup in years.”

Tom Lee of Fundstrat Global Advisors repeated his $200,000–$250,000 forecast well into October. Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, said he was “sticking with” a similar range as late as November.

The humbling truth

Only a handful adjusted their expectations downward in time.

Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz, once a $500,000 prophet, was one of the few to publicly dial it back, saying in October that BTC would likely end the year between $120,000 and $125,000. Standard Chartered followed suit in December, slashing its target to $100,000 from $200,000.

In the end, 2025 reminded the market of an old truth: Bitcoin humbles everyone. It shrugs off models, breaks charts, and ignores even the boldest calls. Some missed by inches. Others missed by miles. But nearly all missed.

As the dust settles, the industry is once again left with charts to redraw, narratives to rewrite, and a single, undeniable takeaway: in crypto, predictions are easy to make. Being right is rare.

2025 was defined by a stark divergence: structural progress collided with stagnant price action. Institutional milestones were reached and TVL increased across most major ecosystems, yet the majority of large-cap Layer-1 tokens finished the year with negative or flat returns.

This report analyzes the structural decoupling between network usage and token performance. We examine 10 major blockchain ecosystems, exploring protocol versus application revenues, key ecosystem narratives, mechanics driving institutional adoption, and the trends to watch as we head into 2026.

• Bitcoin was trading higher during U.S. market hours, marking a notable shift after a month in which BTC fell roughly 20 percent cumulatively while American stocks were open.
• Declining open interest suggests the move is driven by short-covering rather than fresh leveraged longs.
• Broader crypto markets remain fragile as ETF outflows, tax-related positioning, and light holiday liquidity pressure prices.

Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of Bullish (NYSE:BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. Bullish owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets and CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish equity-based compensation.