Bitcoin Sets New All-Time High, But Eyes Even Bigger Gains

After setting multiple new highs this week and briefly topping $118,000, bitcoin appears poised for a breakout that could reach $168,000 over the next 12-18 months according to Katie Stockton, founder and managing partner at market research firm Fairlead Strategies. Her prediction is based on the measured move technical indicator, which refers to a highly structured price movement that consists of two swings in the same direction with a pause in between.

“If we were to go with the most aggressive [scenario], assuming that the secular trend is drawn back to the 2022 low up to the early 2025 highs, that gets bitcoin (BTC) to about $168,000,” said Stockton in an interview with Unchained.

Stockton’s more measured prediction is for bitcoin to reach $135,000, perhaps as soon as this quarter, according to the same metric. “April was an oversold low on the weekly chart, and we hadn’t had one of those in a long time. If we’re using that kind of late 2024 to early 2025 up move as our primary trend, that’s how we’re getting to $134,000-$135,000,” she said. “It’s conservative potentially because we’re only going back to an intermediate term low as opposed to a very long-term low.”

Bitcoin Finally Breaks Out … and Here’s Why It Can Last

For bulls, this week’s movement was overdue given the excitement surrounding crypto treasury companies that have raised billions of dollars to buy bitcoin and other assets. However, until this week its price had been stuck below $110,000.

The asset finally broke through its resistance for a few reasons, including industry excitement for next week’s Crypto Week in the House, which will focus on three key pieces of industry legislation that will set rules for stablecoins, ban the creation of a central bank digital currency in the U.S., and delineate regulatory authority for the broader crypto market between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), among other items.

But the bigger factor could be the growing appetite for speculation in all markets, including both traditional finance and crypto. This development is perhaps most apparent in how investors shrugged off the more than a dozen tariff letters sent by the White House to trading partners around the world. “As long as there’s some wiggle room until the government starts collecting at these levels that have been threatened in these letters, the market is going to just continue to basically ignore them,” said Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, in an interview with Unchained. “As long as the market sees some opportunity to wiggle out of the worst of the tariffs, it’s going to largely ignore them because it’s been extraordinarily profitable for them to do so.” 

While bitcoin’s correlation with the broader tech sector, including the Nasdaq 100 (NDX) and S&P 500’s (SPY), has broken down at times in the past year, the price has been highly correlated with these benchmarks in 2025.

Further adding to investor excitement is that, notwithstanding this week’s sharp movement, bitcoin has slipped into a period of low volatility, meaning that investors have not experienced and do not expect to experience rapid price movements in the near future (in either direction). The first chart shows how bitcoin’s recent climb has come on the back of a relatively calm market. The second, which reflects Deribit’s implied volatility for bitcoin based on its platform’s options contracts, shows how investors expect this trend to continue.

What to Watch For

According to Stockton, a key factor to follow will be if bitcoin successfully closes a second week above $108,000, which appears highly likely. 

But at the same time, traders should also expect some downward volatility as the asset continues to make its way upward. Certain technical indicators, such as the relative strength index, indicate that bitcoin may be slightly overbought, which is common during periods of steep growth. Stockton says that if a trader has not taken a position in bitcoin yet, it might be best to wait for a period of consolidation before buying in. “[Bitcoin’s growth] is probably not going to be a straight ride up when we think about these advances. It could be steep, but I would say that you can always assume that there will be pullbacks. So somebody who hasn’t taken a position yet, they may be well served to wait for the next pullback.”