Bitcoin logo (Jakub Porzycki/Getty Images)

Bitcoin soars past $120,000 as analysts predict new all-time high by end of year

Friday’s price is a 97% jump from where bitcoin was a year ago.

10/3/25 11:15AM

Bitcoin is up over 10% this week, crossing $120,000 for the first time since its previous all-time high record of over $124,000 on August 14. This is a 97% jump from where bitcoin was a year ago, hovering around $60,700.

John Haar, managing director at Swan Bitcoin, told Sherwood News that bitcoin’s rise this week is due to a confluence of factors, including the government shutdown causing fiscal uncertainty, highlighting the value of assets like bitcoin and gold.

“Over the longer term, with global debt at record highs and fiat currencies under pressure, bitcoin is increasingly seen as a liquid, non-sovereign reserve asset. We’re watching a shift from speculative trades to strategic allocations, and we believe this will push price beyond prior highs,” Haar said.

Analysts are also optimistic about bitcoin’s trajectory.

JPMorgan analysts expect bitcoin to hit $165,000 by year-end, driven by the acceleration of “the debasement trade,” with retail investors rushing to buy both gold and bitcoin ETFs, they said in a note. The debasement trade refers to a slew of macroeconomic factors, including “elevated geopolitical and policy uncertainty,” “waning confidence in fiat currencies in certain emerging markets,” and “persistently high government deficits across major economies,” the analysts wrote.

Meanwhile, Citi analysts gave bitcoin a 12-month price target of $181,000 in a note this week that also gave bitcoin a year-end price target of $132,000.

Finally, Geoff Kendrick, global head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered, said the shutdown will be the primary driver of the impending all-time high.

“During the previous Trump shutdown (22 Dec 2018 to 25 Jan 2019) bitcoin was in a different place than now, so it did little. However, this year bitcoin has traded with ‘US government risks’ as best shown by its relationship to US treasury term premium,” he wrote in a note.

Bitcoin ETFs have amassed $2.25 billion in inflows since Monday. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust alone saw $466.5 million in inflows on Thursday, according to SoSoValue data.

Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas wrote in a post on X that both IBIT and the SPDR Gold ETF were in the top 10 ETFs by volume Thursday, “which is rare, everyone wants in on The Debaser Trade I guess.”

In other bitcoin news:

MARA Holdings, the second-largest corporate bitcoin holder, increased its holdings to 52,850 bitcoin. In addition, it produced 736 bitcoin in September, a 4% month-over-month increase.
Riot Platforms announced its September production, with 445 bitcoin produced, compared to 477 in August, a 7% month-over-month decrease.
Cango also released its September production update. The bitcoin miner produced 616.6 bitcoin for the month, compared to 663.7 in August, a 7% month-over-month decrease.

Sage D. Young13h

BitMine buys the dip, makes largest ethereum purchase this year

Despite having an unrealized loss of nearly $9.7 billion, the leading ethereum treasury firm has acquired even more of the token.

BitMine Immersion Technologies announced it has acquired 126,971 tokens over the past week, the firm’s largest purchase of ethereum this year. The company’s total stockpile stands at 5.5 million, or around 4.6% of ethereum’s total supply.

“We increased our buying as we believe this pullback in ETH prices does not reflect the strengthening of Ethereum fundamentals,” BitMine Chairman Tom Lee said in a statement.

The acquisition comes after the crypto markets saw a broad downturn last week, with many tokens hitting multiyear lows.

Lee argued the sell-off in crypto was a “superficial take.” As artificial intelligence grows more capable, demand for hardened infrastructure is likely to increase alongside expectations that AI systems will expose flaws in centralized rails and weak decentralized protocols, according to Lee.

“We believe this actually strengthens the use case and product market fit for hardened and reliable decentralized blockchains like ethereum,” Lee said. “Thus, we believe ETH prices should not be coming under pressure.”

Meanwhile, last week ethereum ETFs saw more than $173 million in outflows, marking the fourth consecutive week of net redemptions, data from SoSoValue shows.

Joe Lubin, cofounder of ethereum and current CEO of software development firm Consensys, said the recent moves by the Ethereum Foundation, namely staff turnover and leadership changes, are not evidence of a crisis, but a necessary evolution, per a CoinDesk report. Lubin emphasized that “Ethereum is not on the decline, not at all,” even if “we are not front and center right now in terms of capital inflows, investments.”

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

14h

Strategy makes big bitcoin buy after period that ranked “among the worst weeks of the decade”

The digital asset stockpiler reversed course from its small sale and purchased $101 million worth of bitcoin.

Sage D. Young

6/5/26

Zcash nosedives after counterfeit vulnerability revealed

The privacy-focused cryptocurrency has dropped more than 40% in the last 24 hours, shedding $3.8 billion in market capitalization.

$62B

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy6/5/26

Bitcoin digital asset treasuries (DATs) have taken a big hit amid bitcoin’s tumble, shedding $62 billion in value since the asset’s October 6 all-time high, Artemis data shows, with their fully diluted market cap dropping to $72 billion from $134 billion in early October.

Meanwhile, bitcoin, which has fallen below $62,000 on Friday morning, is down 50% from its all-time high. DAT pioneer Strategy’s market cap stood at $102.2 billion on October 6, according to Macro Trends, and is now down to $45.6 billion, a 55% decline. Strategy has been in hot water since it sold 32 bitcoin earlier this week, and because its digital credit instrument, STRC, has been trading below its par value. Shares of Strategy are down 17% in the past week.

Sage D. Young6/4/26

“Sentiment for crypto is firmly in the gutter” as sector sinks, with tokens hitting multiyear lows

On Thursday, altcoins swept lower as bitcoin weakened. The tokens with the biggest losses in the last 24 hours are NEAR, ethena, and Zcash, each declining double digits in the period.

Other tokens have dropped to lows not seen in over a year in the past 24 hours:

Ethereum dropped 4.4% to under $1,780, a level not seen since April 2025.
XRP declined 4.5% to an 18-month low last hit in November 2024.
Solana decreased 6% to trade below the $70 mark, its lowest price since December 2023.
Dogecoin slid below $0.09, a 27-month low last seen in February 2024.

“Sentiment for crypto is firmly in the gutter as fears surrounding BTC/STRC and its potential overflow compound and overshadow anything that can be read as positive news (e.g. CLARITY movements),” according to Sean Dawson, head of research at crypto options platform Derive.xyz.

“[Altcoins] are high beta plays to BTC and are typically sold heavily in a downturn. Simply put, I’d be even more bearish on alts,” Dawson told Sherwood News.

“Further, liquidity has been drained into this year’s ‘superhot’ narrative of AI/data centers. In other words, there are just better, more exciting opportunities elsewhere,” Dawson added.

One cryptocurrency that has bucked the downtrend has been worldcoin, the native token for World, the digital identity project backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. While the broader crypto market has been pushing lower, WLD has jumped nearly 5% in the last 24 hours and 90% in the past seven days, data from CoinGecko shows.

Bitcoin soars past $120,000 as analysts predict new all-time high by end of year

More Crypto

BitMine buys the dip, makes largest ethereum purchase this year

“Sentiment for crypto is firmly in the gutter” as sector sinks, with tokens hitting multiyear lows

Latest Stories