Draper continues to stick to his optimistic prediction that Bitcoin will reach $250,000 in 2023 despite the ongoing FTX-fueled crypto crisis.
“No change in the price forecast. Still $250,000 by early next year,” Draper said in an interview with Cointelegraph on November 15.
The collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX had nothing to do with Bitcoin’s success because Bitcoin is decentralized, and FTX was not, according to Draper.
“FTX was centralized, and relied on one founder,” the billionaire investor stated, referring to FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. “When a currency is centralized – a central bank for example – it has a single point of failure, and it can be manipulated as well,” he added.
According to Draper, the downfall of FTX will only lead to more decentralization of crypto as recent events have once again demonstrated centralization’s biggest weaknesses:
“I think this fiasco will bring a lot of bitcoin extremists in. Note that your money is not safe in a centralized system, whether it is crypto or fiat.”
Draper also emphasized the importance of self-custody, which is in line with the principles of decentralization. At the same time, he also expressed his confidence in the centralized exchange Coinbase, saying, “I also hold my tokens with Ledger and Coinbase. Neither of them uses my tokens for borrowing or investing.”
As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Draper first made his famous Bitcoin prediction in 2018, predicting that BTC will reach $250,000 by the end of 2022 or early 2023.
The investor has repeated his prediction several times since then, ignoring major bear markets and the fallout from the collapse of major cryptocurrency exchanges and investment firms.
Related: Bitcoin Will Shoot Over $100K in 2023 Ahead of the ‘Biggest Bear’ – Trader
Not everyone is equally optimistic about the Bitcoin price in the near future. A Bitcoin advocate took to Twitter on November 7 to slam Draper’s predictions, arguing that Bitcoin clearly won’t reach $250,000 by mid-2023. He also called for learning from the past, pointing to a failed Bitcoin prediction by the late John McAfee.
According to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, the FTX fiasco set the cryptocurrency industry back a few years, with more regulatory scrutiny ahead.
Additional reporting by Rachel Wolfson.
