On the Coin Stories podcast, Lee shared that he is confident that institutional adoption will drive the next major rally, with a target range of $200,000 to $250,000. Other analysts, including Arthur Hayes and Joe Burnett, also have optimistic targets, while firms like Bernstein and Standard Chartered expect more modest gains around $200,000. Meanwhile, IREN Ltd outperformed industry heavyweight MARA in July by mining more Bitcoin despite having a smaller hashrate. The mining firm also saw its stock rally 11.4% as it expands into AI cloud services. Bitcoin Could Hit $250K in 2025 Fundstrat co-founder and BitMine chairman Tom Lee once again talked about his bullish stance on Bitcoin, and predicted that the leading cryptocurrency could still surge to $250,000 by the end of 2025. In an interview on the Coin Stories podcast with Natalie Brunell , Lee shared that he is confident that Bitcoin will build momentum before the year concludes, and suggested a range between $200,000 and $250,000 is within reach. This projection was made after his previous call in November of 2024, when he gave Bitcoin a 12-month window to hit the $250,000 mark. While Lee is clearly still very optimistic, other analysts started to adopt more tempered expectations. Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, and Joe Burnett of Unchained have similar bullish targets , but firms like Bernstein and Standard Chartered set their year-end forecasts at $200,000. Meanwhile, 10x Research’s Markus Thielen presented a more conservative estimate of $160,000. These varied predictions come during the broader debate about the relevance of Bitcoin’s historical four-year halving cycle. Lee argues that institutional adoption is reshaping Bitcoin’s trajectory, which could possibly render traditional market cycles less predictive. Still, not everyone agrees. Analyst Rekt Capital recently said that if Bitcoin mirrors its 2020 performance, the market could peak around October 2025, which is roughly 550 days after the latest halving event in April of 2024. On the other hand, Matt Hougan , chief investment officer at Bitwise, went as far as to call the four-year halving cycle “dead,” and projected that 2026 could instead be Bitcoin’s next major growth year. Despite the uncertainty, Lee sees the current skepticism in the market as a positive force. He believes that widespread doubt leaves room for positive surprises and sustained price discovery. Crypto Fear and Greed Index (Source: Alternative ) The recent shift in the Crypto Fear & Greed Index from “Greed” to “Neutral” also reflects this growing caution among investors. Still, Lee is quite steadfast in his long-term view, and ultimately predicted Bitcoin could reach $1 million “over time” as adoption and institutional interest continue to grow. IREN Tops MARA in July BTC Mining In other Bitcoin-related news, shares of Bitcoin mining firm IREN Ltd surged 11.4% on Wednesday after the company reported strong July results. This included $86 million in revenue and the production of 728 Bitcoin. IREN Bitcoin mined (Source: IREN ) Interestingly, this output was more than that of industry giant MARA Holdings, which mined 703 BTC during the same period despite operating a larger deployed hashrate of 58.9 exahashes per second (EH/s) compared to IREN’s 50 EH/s. IREN’s average hashrate for the month was 45.4 EH/s, which indicates high operational efficiency and machine uptime despite rising mining difficulty and energy costs that recently pressured the sector’s profitability. MARA’s performance, although trailing IREN in July production, came after a robust second-quarter earnings report showing a 64% year-on-year revenue increase to $238 million. MARA also maintains the second-largest corporate Bitcoin treasury by holding 50,000 BTC , second only to Michael Saylor’s Strategy. After the announcement, IREN shares closed at $18.32, which pushed its market cap to $4.11 billion. This positioned IREN as the second most valuable publicly traded Bitcoin miner, surpassing both Riot Platforms and Core Scientific, and trailing only MARA. The stock’s strong performance also proves that there is growing investor confidence in IREN’s strategy to diversify beyond Bitcoin mining. IREN’s share price over the past 24 hours (Source: Google Finance ) A $2.3 million of IREN’s July revenue came from its AI cloud business, which is becoming an important part of its operations. The company recently acquired 2,400 of NVIDIA’s advanced Blackwell GPUs, with 256 units already delivered. Co-founder and co-CEO Daniel Roberts pointed out the strong market interest in the AI segment, and believes the synergy between running Bitcoin mining and AI infrastructure side-by-side is a strategic advantage. IREN’s turnaround is particularly impressive when considering it was labeled “wildly overvalued” last year by short-selling firm Culper Research. The firm criticized IREN’s AI ambitions, and even compared them to attempting a Grand Prix in a Toyota Prius. However, since bottoming at $5.59 in April, IREN’s stock rallied over 227%, defying the earlier skepticism.
