Lawrence Lewitinn Predicts Grim Future for Bitcoin

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As bitcoin lingered around $30,000 in July 2021, CoinDesk’s Managing Editor for Markets Lawrence Lewitinn predicted it would never be able to make a comeback without support from the Chinese government.

“We could see a pop here and there, depending on what’s being said, but we have to step back a little bit and see that basically, bitcoin has been on a downward decline since mid-May,” Lewitinn said in a July 21 interview with CNBC’s Frank Holland.

Bitcoin reached an all-time in April slightly above $64,000, three months before Lewitinn’s comments. It pulled back to a short-term low of slightly less than $30,000 in July, about a week before Lewitinn’s interview, meaning his prediction was an almost-perfect indicator of the bottom. Bitcoin surged to another all-time high directly after Lewitinn’s comments, reaching more than $69,000 in November. The Chinese government made headlines last summer for reminding financial institutions that they were prohibited from providing services related to cryptocurrency, and for cracking down on bitcoin mining operations. The government made crypto-related transactions illegal in 2013, but periodically issues notices reminding institutions of the law. Western media seized on the notices last year to suggest the situation would result in an exodus of Chinese capital from cryptocurrencies.

“May is an important point, because that was when crypto trading firms had a tough time in China because of bans,” Lewitinn explained. “They couldn’t deal with financial institutions there. … And then interest in bitcoin just basically dropped off. You start to see this volume decline since then.

“We don’t really know what could happen, but it’s not going to overcome this kind of bearishness,” he added, while dismissing investors who quickly sent bitcoin back above $30,000. “It might be just buying because the price was below 30, you might have technical buying, you might have some interest coming in … but overall it’s not going to overcome this lack of retail buying coming out of Asia that was there month ago. It’s a real problem that bitcoin has right now.”

Lewitinn developed his abilities as an expert forecaster earlier in his career as a trader on Wall Street, according to his CoinDesk biography, and by working as a reporter for CNBC. His bio also notes that his cryptocurrency holdings include positions of “$200 or less in over 120 cryptocurrencies.”

Watch the full CNBC exchange above.