CryptoQuant Founder Puts $112,000 Target For Bitcoin This Year

The founder of on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant has said Bitcoin could reach a target of $112,000 this year driven by the ETF inflows.

In a new post on X, CryptoQuant CEO and founder Ki Young Ju talked about the outlook of the cryptocurrency based on the inflows going towards the spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

The analyst has used the “Realized Cap” indicator to find price targets for the coin. The Realized Cap refers to a capitalization model for Bitcoin that calculates the total valuation of the asset by assuming that the real value of any coin in circulation is the price at which it was last transacted on the blockchain.

If the previous transaction of any token is assumed to have involved a change of hands for it (that is, buying and selling took place), then the last transfer price would correspond to the cost basis of the coin.

As the Realized Cap essentially adds up the cost basis of all the investors, one way to look at the metric is as a measure of the total amount of investment the holders have put into the coin.

Naturally, the Realized Cap pushes up as trades occur at a higher spot price. Something that could be particularly influential for the Realized Cap this cycle may be the spot ETF inflows.

The spot ETFs, which finally got approval from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last month, have been buying up Bitcoin at relatively high prices to add to their holdings, thus elevating the Realized Cap.

The chart below shows the data for the holdings of the spot ETFs and the Bitcoin Realized Cap.

“Bitcoin market has seen $9.5B in spot ETF inflows per month, potentially boosting the realized cap by $114B yearly,” explains Ju. “Even with $GBTC outflows, a $76B rise could elevate the realized cap from $451B to $527-565B.”

The Market Value to Realized Value (MVRV) ratio may provide some hints regarding how the Realized Cap could be relevant for the spot price. This indicator tracks the BTC Market Cap and the Realized Cap ratio.

“Historically, BTC market bottoms occur at an MVRV of 0.75 and tops at 3.9,” notes the CryptoQuant founder. Based on this fact, the table below shows that ceiling and floor prices can be defined for the asset.

As the spot ETF inflows continue to come in, the Realized Cap will only push further up, and the potential ceiling of the cryptocurrency will also thus increase.

“With current spot ETF inflow trends, the top price could reach $104k-$112k,” says the CryptoQuant CEO. “Without hype, maintaining the current level of 2.07, the price would be $55-59k.”

In the best-case scenario, if Bitcoin had reached the $112,000 target, the cryptocurrency would have jumped more than 126% from the current spot price.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at around $49,400, up over 15% in the past week.