Bitcoin (BTC-USD) prices have continued their remarkable ascent, surpassing the $72,000 mark for the first time in its history. This surge has been fueled by a substantial increase in demand thanks to the approval of bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), with some strategists predicting that the cryptocurrency could surpass $100,000 by the end of the year.

Yahoo Finance's Josh Schafer and David Hollerith break down the details, providing insights into how supply and demand dynamics have contributed to the surge in bitcoin prices.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Editor's note: This article was written by Angel Smith

Video Transcript

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JULIE HYMAN: Bitcoin hitting another all time high after eclipsing $72,000 today. But the cryptocurrency has a ways to climb if some industry targets are to be believed. Yahoo Finance's David Hollerith and Josh Schafer are here to hammer this one. You guys have been trying to get to the bottom of, how do they get to these targets? So, first of all, let's talk about what are the targets--

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JOSH SCHAFER: Sure.

JULIE HYMAN: --and what people on Wall Street are expecting from this.

JOSH SCHAFER: Yeah, so there's a range of targets here, Julie. Unsurprisingly, most of them are higher. I think most people that see Bitcoin going lower don't even engage in this exercise. I think that's an important thing to start off with here. A lot of people that would say Bitcoin is going to go lower or have a quote, unquote, "sell rating," as we often say, aren't even engaging in making a price target for the cryptocurrency.

But some of the targets that we highlighted here-- Standard Chartered Bank saying Bitcoin is going to go to $100,000 by year end. SkyBridge sees $110,000 by year end. Fundstrat's Tom Lee has made a public call of $150,000 for the biggest cryptocurrency in the world. A lot of what these different firms seem to be highlighting is, essentially, it's a demand-driven product, right? We're really just talking about demand and how that's going to move price.

The ETFs brought a lot more demand than we had previously seen for the crypto. Not all the coins are mined, right? So as demand goes up, price is going to go up. It's a little bit of a basic scenario when it comes to that. David, you've also-- you've covered crypto a little bit more closely than I have. I'd be curious just sort of what you make of what these analysts told us about the base case here and what their reasoning was.

DAVID HOLLERITH: Yeah, I mean, there's an element to this compared to S&P price targets where it is a little bit more-- there are more assumptions that are made. But when you actually dig into it, it is based around supply and demand. And there's some of that can be modeled.