Tom Lee, co-founder of Fundstrat, explains the Bitcoin Misery Index, a contrarian indicator that hit 89 in April 2019, the highest in years. Bitcoin had just crossed its 200-day moving average at $4,200, a bullish technical signal. Lee says the price can hold its old highs, though new records depend on timing.
Hi everyone. I'm Olivia Capozzallo, head of editorial at Cointelegraph. Today we're going to talk to bitcoin bull and legendary crypto market analyst famous for his bitcoin price predictions, Tom Lee. Tom is co founder of fundstrat, a market research firm. Let's get started. Hi, Tom, thanks for being with us today.
Yeah, glad to be here.
Okay, so I'll just start with the first question, which is about your Bitcoin misery index. It hit its highest figure since June 2016 recently. And I'm wondering if you can first explain to viewers what the bitcoin misery index is and then talk about what this recent figure means.
Yeah. The bitcoin misery index is designed to sort of measure or track what we believe is the sentiment of a holder of crypto. And it's designed to have a reading between 0 and 100. So 100 means everybody is enthusiastic and 0 means everyone's depressed at the extremes. It tends to be a contrarian indicator. And so, you know, when it falls below 27, if everyone's miserable, it's probably a good risk reward. But when it's above 67, it's not necessarily a sell signal, but it does mean everyone's euphoric. And the most recent reading was 89 or so, almost 90, which is the highest reading in more than a few years. Means that a bull market is likely starting. But the second implication is that when the reading gets to the 90s, six out of six times there was a drawdown in markets, so averaging 25%. So I think in the short term it means that we could see some sort of pullback, but it would not be the start or an extension of a bear. It just simply means that bitcoin is back in a bull market and then that's a pullback to s, to people.
So currently bitcoin's still trading above 5,000. It's stabilized there in USD terms. And can you talk about what technical indicators tell you about this price range and, or do you rely on them?
The most important to me technical achievement of bitcoin recently is that it crossed its 200 day moving average. And the reason being is that in general, whether we look at any market, people tend to think an instrument or an asset is in positive trend when it's above its 200 days. So Bitcoin was able to finally cross that, which was around 4200 at the start of this year. We thought that that crossover would take place in the fall and that's when people would turn Bullish. But the fact that it's happening now is actually, you know, is bullish. And I think it means, you know, bitcoin's recovery is taking place a lot faster than we would have expected. And I think it maybe means that, you know, the price recovery cycle for, for bitcoin this time won't be any different than past either. Bitcoin will stage a pretty big recovery starting sometime this year and you'll easily recover to its new to new highs, exceed old highs and then, you know, but just how far it goes, I guess is, is the unknown.
Okay, so to clarify, you could see it reaching new highs within this year?
Oh, I don't know if it's this year, but I think, I think that, I think new highs are going to be achieved and I think it's important more for the non crypto person to realize that that's, you know, I think for the non crypto investors. So someone who might be new to crypto, when they saw Bitcoin down 80% from its highs, they just thought it was on its way to zero because that's pretty typical of like an equity that's down 80% or it's pretty typical of anything that's down that much. But now it looks like there's a recovery underway. And I think the real question for those who are new to crypto is can bitcoin retain its old highs? Because obviously if it does, it's 4x from here and I guess we don't think it's going to be any problem for bitcoin to retain its old highs.
Could you talk a little bit about what you think the reasons are behind the recent bump in price? From the beginning of April, it was.
Really some of the older wallets that were on the blockchain that we're beginning to add. So it means that folks who had sold in early 2018 are starting to buy back. And as you know, on chain transaction activity on many measures has really picked, has begun to pick up and even exchange volumes. So I think that it was a healthy recovery. But you know, why it happened on April 1st in that one hour window? You know, I don't know, but I do think, you know, it's the start of a real price recovery.
That was Tom Lee, bitcoin market analyst and co founder of fundstrat. Be sure to tune in on Sunday for our weekly Hodler's Digest with Molly Jane. She has a surprise for you. Cointelegraph, like subscribe and Hodl.
