Bitcoin, Ethereum To Soar Before Dot-Com Style Crash<\/h2>\n
Zeberg locates the current moment late in the business cycle but not at the point of breakdown. He points to the absence\u2014so far\u2014of classic pre-recession triggers in yields, credit spreads and initial jobless claims. \u201cA crash doesn\u2019t come out of thin air,\u201d he said. \u201cWe simply don\u2019t see those signals just yet.\u201d With global liquidity improving at the margin and the Federal Reserve already \u201cpivoting\u201d in tone, he expects a sharp upside phase reminiscent of Japan\u2019s 1989 finale: a rising angle that steepens into a near-vertical blow-off. At the index level, he pegs the S&P 500\u2019s terminal run at roughly 7,500 to 8,200 from around 6,400 today.<\/p>\n
Crypto, in his view, will amplify the move. Zeberg expects Bitcoin to lurch first to \u201cat least\u201d $140,000, then top somewhere in the $165,000 to $175,000 range before the bust begins. He projects Ethereum near $17,000 on the assumption that the ETH\/BTC ratio can stretch to about 0.12 in a late-cycle altcoin phase. He stressed the path would be abrupt rather than leisurely: \u201cWhen things are moving in crypto and into the final phase of a bubble, it can be very, very fast.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fulcrum of his thesis is the US dollar. Zeberg is watching closely for a DXY bottom and then a surge to 117\u2013120\u2014\u201cthe wrecking ball\u201d that, in his telling, would hammer risk assets as global dollar demand spikes. \u201cIf we\u2019re going to see somewhat of a crisis, all this debt will need to be settled in dollars,\u201d he said, calling the greenback \u201cstill the cleanest shirt,\u201d even if it is \u201cgetting quite nasty.\u201d In that scenario, liquidity preference overwhelms risk appetite, credit tightens and deleveraging begins\u2014especially outside the US, where dollar liabilities collide with local-currency cash flows.<\/p>\n
He argues that monetary easing cannot ultimately forestall a cyclical turn once the real economy rolls over. Rate cuts may initially goose markets\u2014\u201cYou\u2019re going to see it running up really fast\u201d\u2014but then \u201cthe more wise people in the market\u201d will infer weakness rather than salvation. He thinks the Fed will start with 25 basis points this month, while leaving open the possibility of a larger shock move.<\/p>\n
Either way, he sees a relatively short deflationary bust\u2014\u201csix to nine months\u201d in one formulation\u2014followed by policy panic and, on the other side, a stagflationary phase in which \u201cthe tools of the Fed will become impotent.\u201d He was caustic about the profession\u2019s inflation priors, skewering what he called the \u201chubris\u201d of micromanaging CPI to exactly 2% and ridiculing the decision to award Ben Bernanke a Nobel Prize for what he described as \u201creinventing money printing,\u201d calling it \u201cthe most stupidest thing I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zeberg\u2019s commodity framework slots into that sequence. He expects gold to do its \u201cfinest duty\u201d during a liquidity crunch\u2014get sold to raise cash\u2014before it reprises 2008\u2019s pattern with a steep drawdown, then a powerful recovery. He cited the 2008 analog of a roughly 33\u201335% peak-to-trough decline in gold and as much as 60% in silver before the policy response set a new leg higher.<\/p>\n
Secularly, however, he projects gold \u201cinto the 2030s\u201d at as much as $35,000 per ounce as negative real rates, balance-sheet expansion and an eventual \u201cmonetary reset\u201d reprice money. That reset, in his vision, would anchor a new settlement system on gold and ledger-based rails\u2014\u201ca digital element to it,\u201d but \u201cnot Bitcoin.\u201d<\/p>\n
Strategy: The Largest Ponzi In The Market?<\/h2>\n
On single-name risk, Zeberg delivered one of the interview\u2019s most incendiary lines about Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin. \u201cI think we have the largest open Ponzi game when it comes to MicroStrategy,\u201d he said. \u201cEverybody needs to pile into the stock, then he can take on some more debt and he buys more Bitcoin.\u201d<\/p>\n
He tied the firm\u2019s vulnerability to his macro template: if DXY heads to 120 and \u201cthe largest bubble in the world, the Nasdaq,\u201d suffers an 85%-type drawdown, \u201cBitcoin is going to have a really, really bad period\u2014and then that means MicroStrategy is going to have that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He called the structure \u201cthe largest house of cards we have seen in a long time\u201d and warned that an unwind would be \u201creally, really bad for people who think they can just hold on to it.\u201d The characterization was his alone; he did not present evidence beyond his cyclical and balance-sheet logic, and his remarks were framed within his broader melt-up-then-bust scenario.<\/p>\n
Beyond headline tokens, Zeberg argued that \u201c99%\u201d of crypto projects will ultimately fail, with only a handful emerging like the Amazons that survived the dot-com washout. He distinguished between speculative coins and blockchain projects that deliver real-world utility, while cautioning that \u201cthis rampant speculation\u201d has been prolonged by an era of easy money.<\/p>\n
As for timing catalysts, Zeberg downplayed the idea of a single trigger and instead described an environment that \u201cbecomes toxic\u201d as high rates, falling real income and climbing delinquencies pressure banks and corporates. He is monitoring front-end yields\u2014which he says have begun to \u201cbreak some levels\u201d\u2014credit spreads, and the dollar\u2019s turn.<\/p>\n
He also noted that large-cap tech\u2019s earnings concentration has \u201cdistorted\u201d the market and that even quality small-cap tech is likely to be dragged lower in an indiscriminate unwind. The first stage, however, remains higher. \u201cIt\u2019s a self-propelling cycle,\u201d he said of the melt-up, powered by FOMO and the belief that \u201cthe Fed has got our back.\u201d<\/p>\n
At press time, BTC traded at $111,528.<\/p>\n
![\"Bitcoin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbtc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/BTCUSDT_2025-09-05_08-24-53.png?resize=1024%2C471\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In an interview with Dutch host Paul Buitink published on September 4, Henrik Zeberg, Head Economist at SwissBlock, set out a two-stage roadmap for Bitcoin and crypto: a final, powerful \u201cmelt-up\u201d driven by liquidity and momentum, followed by a dot-com-style bust that he says will be catalyzed by a surging dollar and tightening financial conditions.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[56,55,69,182,120,121,33,66,88,89,92],"class_list":["post-6971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency-market-news","tag-bitcoin","tag-bitcoin-news","tag-bitcoin-price","tag-bitcoin-price-prediction","tag-btc-news","tag-btc-price","tag-cryptocurrency-market-news","tag-ethereum","tag-ethereum-news","tag-ethereum-price","tag-ethereum-price-prediction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinsvalue.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}