By CCN: After a week in which bitcoin flirted with $9,000 for the first time in a year, Fundstrat’s Tom Lee cited data which suggests the point of no return is fast approaching.
According to data from Fundstrat, when the value of bitcoin crosses the $10,000 barrier, it’s full-blown FOMO all the way. Labeled as ‘Level 10’ FOMO, this represents the equivalent value at which Bitcoin has soared in the past.
Full Blown ‘Level 10’ FOMO Approaching for Bitcoin
Global head of the Financial Times, Adam Samson tweeted the following graphic on Wednesday, along with this tweet:
We are apparently headed straight for LEVEL 10 FOMO in the #bitcoin market (via @fundstrat) pic.twitter.com/YzFkrazWz2
— Adam Samson (@adamsamson) May 29, 2019
Tom Lee then made an appearance in the thread to cool Samson’s eagerness, but essentially confirmed the conclusions drawn from the data. Lee wrote:
“Actually the point of the chart is to say “real FOMO” probably starts when bitcoin exceeds $10,000, as that is a price level only seen 3% of all days… …Mathematically equivalent to exceeding $BTC $4,500 in 2017. Looking back, that price was a level that indeed triggered FOMO.”
Glancing at the Bitcoin charts from late 2017, we see that $10,000 was a clear turning point. However, Lee’s price-focused data fails to take fundamental factors into account.
In early December 2017, the launch of CME Group’s bitcoin futures market was announced. A couple of weeks later, when the futures market actually opened, the value of bitcoin plummeted to depths from which it has yet to recover. Read this prescient Bitcointalk forum thread to get a sense of the uncertainty surrounding CME’s impact at the time.
Quibbling Over Numbers
If more data like that of Fundtrat’s appears in the near future, the full-blown FOMO mentioned by Tom Lee could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That said, not everyone agrees with Lee’s numbers. One Twitter user questioned the wisdom of assuming $10,000 was the FOMO level in 2017. After all, the value of bitcoin did soar from $1,000 to $3,000 between January 2017 and June 2017 before continuing to notch up new all-time highs. User @John_Silvestro tweeted:
“Exceeding 4500 in 2017 was an ATH. As was anything above 1100 during 2017. Comparing them retroactively with a 3% metric is false equivalency. The real comparison for 4500 in 2017 would be btc @ ~77,000 today.”
Others agreed with Silvestro’s skeptical take, including @_Dumb_Genius, who wrote:
“Why wouldn’t Level 10 FOMO for this cycle be around $80K (4x the top of the previous cycle) similar to $4500 (4x of ~$1100)? Is Level 10 FOMO being front run by a factor of 8x? And if that’s the case, will the bubble top percentage of this cycle then be significantly higher?”
Media Boom and Hype?
Echoing the idea of bitcoin growth predictions becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, another Twitter user suggested that regardless of technicalities, $10,000 could be the point where media hype aligns with buying pressure. User @Bitcoin_Brian said:
“$10k could lead to media boom and hype cycle. That is where I would expect to see the FOMO. Right now looks like HODLers accumulating.”
Tom Lee has been a prime mover in that boom and hype before and maintained his 2018 BTC price prediction of $25,000 for some time. On that occasion, his hype proved illusory; but with bitcoin now back to a 12-month high, he could have an opportunity to redeem himself.
