Bitcoin surges above $56K: Can crypto keep the rally going?

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Bitcoin (BTC-USD) surged past $57,000 intraday on Tuesday, the first time the digital asset has sat at that milestone in over two years. The cryptocurrency has rallied almost 30% year-to-date in 2024 alone, ahead of the bitcoin halving event in April.

Benchmark Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst Mark Palmer joins Yahoo Finance to discuss his long-term forecasts for bitcoin as crypto prices surge.

When asked what companies are best positioned to leverage the crypto asset, Palmer explains: "I have to come back to MicroStrategy (MSTR) simply because if you look at the correlation coefficient between bitcoin and MicroStrategy, it's 0.94. So if someone can go out and buy bitcoin in the market, fine, but many institutional investors in particular do not have the ability to do that under their mandates and so this offers an attractive alternative and again, on a levered basis. There's also a robust option stack around MicroStrategy and the stock itself is marginable, so you can't hedge effectively with a spot bitcoin ETF, you can hedge very effectively with the capital structure around MicroStrategy."

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 Nicholas Jacobino

Video Transcript

BRAD SMITH: Bitcoin-- we'll start there topping-- $57,000 earlier this morning for the first time in over two years. We're seeing it trade now around $56,811.24 to be exact. The rally largely attributed to demand around spot Bitcoin ETFs plus investments from MicroStrategy, which scooped up over $155 million worth of Bitcoin in the past couple of weeks.

For more on the rally, we turn to Mark Palmer, benchmark managing director and senior research analyst. Mark, always a great pleasure to get some of your insights and analysis here. Particularly, you're focused in on MicroStrategy. But if we pair together, what we're seeing-- because a lot of the MicroStrategy story now is hinging on Bitcoin as well. What does Bitcoin need to get up to in order for it to hit some of your targets that you've got set forth for MicroStrategy?

MARK PALMER: Yes. Good to talk to you. Our assumption is that the price of Bitcoin is going to achieve $125,000 by the end of 2025, which, as you can see the stock, the price of Bitcoin had been around $57,000. So that's a big move.

But why do we have confidence that that's going to happen, and it's going to accrue to the benefit of MicroStrategy? Really, it comes down to supply and demand. As you mentioned, there's been significant demand for Bitcoin since the nine spot Bitcoin ETFs have launched following the SEC's approval of that structure in January.