The 2025 Crypto Market Performs a “Forecast Fail”: Institutions Generally Predicted Bitcoin Over $150,000 at the Start of the Year, Betting on Halving, ETFs, and Policy Bonuses, Yet BTC Continues to Decline Since October Peak.
This article is sourced from Nikka, written by WolfDAO, compiled, edited, and drafted by Foresight News.
(Previous summary: “Japan MicroStrategy” Metaplanet Stops Holding Bitcoin—Strategic Shift or Building Up Power for Launch?)
(Additional background: Bitcoin liquidity has been reshaped—“Old indicators” may have failed, and the market needs a new perspective.)

Table of Contents

• 1. Early Year Predictions vs. Current Status Comparison
  • 1.1 The Three Pillars of Market Consensus
  • 1.2 The Institutional Prediction Panorama: Who Is the Most Aggressive?
• 2. Root Causes of Misjudgment: Why Did Institutional Predictions Fail Collectively?
  • 2.1 Consensus Trap: When “Positive News” Loses Marginal Effect
  • 2.2 Cycle Model Failure: History Does Not Simply Repeat
  • 2.3 Conflicts of Interest: Structural Biases of Institutions
  • 2.4 Liquidity Blind Spot: Misjudging Bitcoin’s Asset Properties
• Conclusion

At the beginning of 2025, the Bitcoin (BTC) market is filled with exuberant optimism. Almost all mainstream institutions projected year-end prices above $150,000, with some aggressive forecasts even pointing toward $200,000+ or higher.

But reality has staged a “counter” drama: BTC plummeted over 33% from the October early peak of about $126,000, entering a “bloodbath” mode in November (single-month decline of 28%). This collective wipeout warrants an in-depth review: why were predictions so consistent at the start of the year? Why did almost all mainstream institutions get it wrong?

1. Early Year Predictions vs. Current Status Comparison

1.1 The Three Pillars of Market Consensus

At the start of 2025, the Bitcoin market was flooded with unprecedented optimism. Nearly all mainstream institutions set year-end target prices above $150,000, with some aggressive forecasts even reaching $200,000-$250,000. This highly consistent bullish expectation was built on three “certain” logic pillars:

Cyclical Factors: The Halving Curse
Within 12-18 months after the fourth halving (April 2024), price peaks have historically appeared multiple times.

• 2012 Halving: 13 months to $1,150
• 2016 Halving: 18 months to surpass $20,000
• 2020 Halving: 12 months to $69,000
  The market generally believes that supply-side contraction effects will lag, and 2025 is in a “historic window.”

Fundamentals Expectations: ETF Wave
Approval of spot ETFs is seen as the opening of “institutional capital gates.”
Market anticipates net inflows exceeding $100 billion in the first year, with pensions, sovereign funds, and traditional capital massively allocating.
Endorsements from giants like BlackRock and Fidelity deepen the narrative of “mainstream Bitcoin.”

Policy Positives: Trump Card
The Trump administration’s friendly stance on crypto assets—including discussions on strategic Bitcoin reserves and expected SEC personnel adjustments—are viewed as long-term policy supports.
Regulatory uncertainty is expected to decrease significantly, clearing hurdles for institutional entry.

Based on these three logics, the average early-year target price among mainstream institutions reached $170,000, implying an expected increase of over 200% within the year.

1.2 The Institutional Prediction Panorama: Who Is the Most Aggressive?

The table summarizes early predictions from 11 major institutions and analysts, contrasted against the current price ($92,000), with obvious deviations:

[Screenshot 2025-12-16 11:18:25 AM | Dognation News - The Most Influential Blockchain News Media]

Prediction Distribution Features:

• Aggressive (8 firms): Target above $150,000, with an average deviation over 80%. Includes VanEck, Tom Lee, Standard Chartered.
• Moderate (2 firms): JPMorgan provides range forecasts; Fidelity offers bullish and bearish scenarios, leaving room for downside.
• Contrarian (1 firm): Only MMCrypto explicitly warns of a crash risk, becoming the only accurate predictor.

Notably, the most aggressive predictions come from the most well-known institutions (VanEck, Tom Lee), whereas the most accurate forecasts come from relatively niche technical analysts.

2. Root Causes of Misjudgment: Why Did Predictions Fail Collectively?

2.1 Consensus Trap: When “Positive News” Loses Marginal Effect

Nine institutions coincidentally bet on “ETF inflows,” forming a highly homogeneous prediction logic.

When a factor is fully recognized by the market and reflected in prices, it loses its marginal driving effect. By early 2025, ETF inflow expectations have been fully priced in. Every investor knows this “positive news,” and prices have already reacted in advance. What the market needs is “unexpected,” not “expected.”

The ETF net inflow for the year fell short of expectations, with November seeing net outflows of $3.48–4.3 billion. More critically, institutions overlooked that ETFs are two-way channels—when the market turns, they cannot only provide support but can also become highways for capital fleeing.

When 90% of analysts tell the same story, that story has lost alpha value.

2.2 Cycle Model Failure: History Does Not Simply Repeat

Institutions like Tom Lee and VanEck rely heavily on the “price peaks 12-18 months after halving” historical pattern, believing that cycles will automatically unfold.

Environmental changes: The macroeconomic environment in 2025 differs fundamentally from historical cycles:

• 2017: Global low interest rates, loose liquidity
• 2021: Pandemic stimulus, central bank easing
• 2025: Consequences of the most aggressive rate hike cycle in 40 years, with the Fed maintaining a hawkish stance

Expectations of Fed rate cuts have sharply declined from 93% at the start of the year to 38% in November. This sudden shift in monetary policy has never occurred in previous halving cycles. Institutions treat “cycles” as deterministic laws, ignoring that they are probabilistic and highly dependent on overall liquidity conditions.

When environment variables change fundamentally, historical models inevitably fail.

2.3 Conflicts of Interest: Structural Biases of Institutions

Top institutions like VanEck, Tom Lee, Standard Chartered show the biggest biases (+100% or more), while niche analysts like Changelly and MMCrypto are the most accurate. There’s often an inverse correlation between institutional size and prediction accuracy.

The fundamental reason: these institutions are stakeholders:

• VanEck: Issuing Bitcoin ETF products
• Standard Chartered: Providing crypto custody services
• Fundstrat: Serving clients holding crypto assets
• Tom Lee: Chairman of Ethereum Treasury BMNR

Structural Pressures:

• Bearish signals threaten their own business models. If they publish bearish reports, it’s equivalent to telling clients “our products are not worth buying.” This conflict of interest is structural and unavoidable.
• Clients need “above $150,000” target prices to justify holdings. Most clients entered high during mid-bull markets, with holding costs between $80,000–$100,000. They rely on analysts to give “above $150,000” targets to justify decisions and maintain confidence to hold or add positions.
• Aggressive forecasts attract more media coverage. Headlines like “Tom Lee predicts Bitcoin at $250,000” naturally garner more clicks and shares than conservative forecasts. Exposure from bold predictions enhances institutional branding and business flow.
• Prominent analysts find it hard to overturn their own historical stances. Tom Lee’s accurate prediction of the 2023 rebound boosted his public image as a “bullish flag bearer.” Even if he harbors reservations in early 2025, he will find it difficult to openly reverse his optimistic stance.

2.4 Liquidity Blind Spot: Misjudging Bitcoin’s Asset Properties

For a long time, the market has likened BTC to “digital gold,” considering it a hedge against inflation and currency depreciation. But in reality, Bitcoin is more akin to Nasdaq tech stocks—highly sensitive to liquidity: when the Fed maintains hawkish policies and liquidity tightens, BTC performs more like high-beta tech stocks, not a safe haven like gold.

The core contradiction lies in Bitcoin’s asset nature vs. a high-interest-rate environment. When real interest rates stay high, the systemic attractiveness of zero-yield assets diminishes. Bitcoin neither generates cash flow nor pays interest; its value depends entirely on future buyers willing to pay higher prices.
In low-interest-rate environments, this isn’t a problem—since money in banks yields little anyway, it’s better to gamble.

But when risk-free yields reach 4-5%, opportunity costs rise sharply, and zero-yield assets like Bitcoin lack fundamental support.

The deadliest misjudgment is that almost all institutions assumed an imminent Fed rate cut cycle.
Early market pricing anticipated 4-6 rate cuts throughout the year, totaling 100-150 basis points. But November data told a different story: inflation rebounded, expectations of rate cuts collapsed, and the market shifted from “fast rate cuts” to “maintaining high rates for longer.” When this core assumption shattered, all optimistic forecasts based on “loose liquidity” lost their foundation.

Conclusion

The collective wipeout of 2025 teaches us: Accurate prediction itself is a false proposition. Bitcoin is influenced by numerous variables—macroeconomic policies, market sentiment, technical factors—and no single model can capture this complexity.

Institutional forecasts are not worthless—they reveal mainstream narratives, capital expectations, and sentiment directions.
The problem is, when predictions become a consensus, that consensus becomes a trap.

True investment wisdom lies in: using institutional research reports to understand market thoughts, but not letting them dictate your actions. When VanEck and Tom Lee are collectively bullish, ask yourself not “Are they right?” but “What if they are wrong?”
Risk management always takes priority over precise predictions.

History repeats, but never in simple duplication.
Halving cycles, ETF narratives, policy expectations—these logics will all fail in 2025, not because they are flawed per se, but because the environment fundamentally changed. Next time, catalysts will have different names, but the market’s excessive optimism remains unchanged.

Remember this lesson: independent thinking is more important than following authority; contrarian voices are more valuable than mainstream consensus; risk management is more critical than accurate prediction.
This is the true moat for long-term survival in the crypto market.