Next Bitcoin bull run to be half story, half utility: Mike Novogratz at Token2049

The next Bitcoin (BTC) bull run will have to be much different from historical cryptocurrency rallies in terms of story and utility, Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz believes.

Compared to previous bull runs, the next Bitcoin rally will have to be more focused on utility and less on the story, Novogratz predicted on a panel at the Token2049 crypto event on Wednesday.

One of the biggest historical rallies, the Bitcoin bull run of 2017, was mostly about the story, the CEO said, referring to the cryptocurrency’s run from around $1,000 to $20,000 within a year.

According to Novogratz, the 2017 bull run was mostly about the story of people not trusting the government and wanting more privacy and decentralization. “It was a Gen Z millennial revolution. And it was global. That’s a powerful story,” the CEO noted.

Another big rally, where Bitcoin reached all-time highs above $69,000 in November 2021, was “really generated” by the COVID-19 pandemic, Novogratz said. He suggested that the price action in 2020 and 2021 was “probably 80% of the story and 20% of utility,” referring to the growing utility use case of digitization amid the pandemic.

“It’s a theory and all the other levels have started to really accelerate the work to build a common blockchain that we could build companies on top of,” Novogratz stated.

In contrast to the aforementioned crypto runs, the next Bitcoin rally will have to be “50% story, 50% utility,” Novogratz predicted, stating:

“I see people building applications, people building systems that are fast and scalable and that are user friendly. We don’t have them yet. That’s why we are where we are. But in the next few years, they will come.”

During the panel, Novogratz also regaled the audience with his bullish prediction about the “inevitability” that crypto will succeed.

“The word inevitable keeps coming up. There is a sense of inevitability that we are in the right space, it is inevitable that Bitcoin will have its day,” Novogratz stated. He also expressed confidence that Web3 and non-fungible tokens will be a big part of the gaming space in the future.

Related: Bitcoin analyst who called 2018 bottom warns ‘bad winter’ may see $10K BTC

Additionally, the CEO noted that despite the ongoing cryptocurrency winter, Bitcoin has still outperformed a basket of currencies this year. “If you look at Bitcoin against a basket of currencies, it’s done about 20% better than against the dollar,” Novogratz noted.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Novogratz made some successful predictions about Bitcoin. Back in 2020, Novogratz predicted that Bitcoin would end the year above $20,000, which turned out to be an understatement, with Bitcoin approaching the price of $30,000 by the end of 2020.

Additional reporting by Andrew Fenton.