Bitcoin $500K prediction, spot Ether ETF ‘staking issue’— Thomas Fahrer, X Hall of Flame

A number of factors in Bitcoin could increase its price over eight times its current value, even if most of them don’t materialize, according to the CEO of crypto-focused reviews portal Apollo, Thomas Fahrer.

“Each one of these individual things is kind of a low probability, but there’s a lot of low probability potential outcomes that can cause a really strong bull market for Bitcoin,” Fahrer tells Hall of Flame. 

He predicts that, even if just a couple of these events occur, Bitcoin could reach the half-a-million-dollar mark within the next four-year cycle.

“I would say probably anywhere in that kind of $300,000–$500,000 region,” he says.

He mentions several potential events, including Bitcoin’s potential to overtake gold’s market capitalization in the future and the United States dollar being backed by Bitcoin.

“I mean, Bitcoin is a $1.2 trillion dollar market cap, and gold is $15 trillion. The way I would look at that is to say that it is kind of a very achievable outcome for Bitcoin within the next handful of years,” he says while noting that United States presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. wants to back the U.S. dollar with Bitcoin.

While Fahrer doesn’t think Kennedy will win the presidential election, he still believes it’s important that a candidate is pushing the idea to the public.

“In a world in which that happened, that would send Bitcoin astronomically higher now,” he says.

What led to X Fame for Fahrer?

Fahrer says that his X following has grown fairly steadily since he started the account in late 2022, but it has really taken off this year, especially with the launch of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the United States.

“I guess the Twitter account following has grown fairly steadily,” he modestly says while his cat jumps onto his lap during the video call. 

Ever since Bitcoin ETFs launched in January, Fahrer has been sharing easy-to-understand updates on ETF inflows and outflows. 

The regular posts have been fairly popular, and he has accumulated roughly 60,000 X followers.

“There’s been a lot of interest in the ETFs, so that has probably been very beneficial for my account this year. I do think it’s the big story of this cycle and also potentially for crypto outside of Bitcoin as well,” Fahrer says.

Even though he’s a passionate Bitcoiner, he doesn’t shy away from highlighting the tough times. 

You’ll still catch him posting about the bloodbath days, especially those massive sell-offs from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.

What content does Fahrer like?

Fahrer has his favorite sources for different types of Bitcoin content. If he wants a laugh, he has his favorite guys lined up on his X feed. For the more technical stuff, he turns to specific onchain analysts. 

When he needs a general update on Bitcoin news, he has a go-to person for that as well.

“If I was looking for some fun Bitcoin memes, it would be someone like Vivek [Sen],” he says.

“Somebody that also does a great job sort of covering these kinds of ETF flows is Hodl Capital,” he adds while revealing that he turns to Glassnode lead analyst James Check for technical analysis.

“He does just really great stuff there,” he says.

Meanwhile, he “really, really enjoys the content” of mathematician and Bitcoin investor Fred Krueger.

“I think he is amazing. I would really highly recommend anyone check out Fred Krueger content. He does amazing work on his coverage of Bitcoin ETFs, but he also puts out a lot of content around the power law,” he says.

What content does Fahrer make?

Fahrer’s content on X is a blend of pocket bites of information about Bitcoin ETF inflows and outflows, light-hearted Bitcoin memes and a selection of the best content to share with his followers.

“The major focus is the Bitcoin flows, I’m clearly looking at all of these ETF flows, but then also trying to take a more holistic view of just actually all of the kind of action involved in the market,” Fahrer says.

Fahrer also runs a daily newsletter with his brother and Apollo co-founder, Julian. The newsletter investigates major companies that are purchasing Bitcoin.

“Within our kind of daily flow state newsletter, we are looking at tracking the corporations that are buying,” he adds.

What are Fahrer’s predictions?

Fahrer thinks that when spot Ether ETFs launch, there will be positive inflow days “kind of immediately” because ETF issues will have “lined up some buyers in advance to have a good running start to it.”

“That’s kind of the job, to try and get some momentum for their funds,” he adds.

But he points out that the big problem Ether ETFs face, which Bitcoin ETFs don’t, is the “staking issue.”

“The fact that if you buy an Ethereum ETF, you’re not staking the Ether, you’re effectively giving up a percentage point in returns,” he explains.

Even if the majority of investors figure out that not staking their Ethereum means missing out on some returns, Fahrer says that a lot of current Ethereum holders don’t seem too worried about leaving that extra cash on the table.

“I don’t know the exact number; I think I might even be over 50% of Ethereum that is not staked in the system now anyway,” he says.

“So there’s a lot of investors that are happy to own Ethereum without staking it,” he claims.

Fahrer plans to show similar love and attention to Ethereum ETF coverage as he has done with Bitcoin ETFs.

“I mean, it’s gonna be really interesting to track what happens to these Ethereum ETFs,” he adds.