Bitcoin may have hit new all-time highs, but not enough momentum is here to sustain this rally, and a pullback towards $15,000 to $16,000 may happen before the price climbs higher still, said Alex Mashinsky, CEO of Celsius Network. Mashinsky has correctly predicted that bitcoin would breach the 2017 highs this year, which it did earlier this week.
Alex Mashinsky is back. He is the CEO of Celsius network and he has correctly called for all time highs for the Bitcoin price this year. Here's his forecast. Now, Alex, welcome back now. You and I have talked several times about cryptocurrencies before your headlines are moderately mellow. Uh, they're less dramatic because you don't have a habit of making big, uh, price forecasts, but what's important.
Is that right? Yes. I think we will hit new highs. Uh, again, there's very few assets. Uh, that hold their value and generate yield. So Bitcoin is an exceptional source of such appreciation. So when Bitcoin hit a new all-time highs earlier this week, how did you feel? Was it earlier than expected later than expected?
Uh, just on time. I think we mentioned, uh, thanks for having me back by the way. Um, mentioned several times that we expected the new all-time highs and Q4. And, uh, we just touched it. We haven't really, you know, in a, you know, proven that we're gonna stay above that range. I think we're going to test that 20 to 22,000 several times.
And I do think we're going to retest the 15 to 16,000 range again. And because I just don't see enough volume, uh, currently. Right. So if you go on Google trends, for example, and you put a Bitcoin. You'll see that we way off from the 2017 hype. So it's good news and bad news. The bad news is we're going to probably retest 15 to 16,000 before we go to new Heights.
Yeah. Okay. So is that going to happen next year? You think in the next two to three months, I see us again, testing, uh, 20 to 20 2004 or five times retesting 15 to 16,000. And then towards the second half of next year of 2021, we'll be at the 30,000 range. Okay. 30,000 range. That was my next question because you've been calling for a new all time highs, uh, well, for a while now, in fact, back in January, you were calling for it this year.
Now the price back in January was about $7,000 a coin. So it's more than, well, almost three times. So double to three times the growth. So far year to date, can you expect similar growth? Over the next 12 to 18 months, Alex. So the, the reason that 2020s is special is because we are the happening event. Uh, so I think the acceleration during 2020 is faster than it's going to be in the next few years, but there's still, uh, less supply, more demand, meaning higher prices.
So we're still going to see these corrections 20, 30, 40% corrections. And, but then overall the trend is higher. I've been getting a lot of feedback about Bitcoin being a maturing asset as a matures institutional money is flowing in, but I'm thinking of the downside. Maybe the rate of adoption is going to be slower in the future as well.
What do you think? So even though many institutions are coming in, uh, you have to remember that the vast majority of the current holders are retail and we really don't know. When they're going to sell, we don't know if they'll sell it 25,000 or 30,000 or 21,000. Right. So, so we don't know how much supplies coming to market at different price levels.
And that's really the, uh, you know, 60,000, uh, dollar question here, our billion dollar question here. Right? So, so yes, a lot of new institution, family offices, famous investors are tiptoeing into Bitcoin. Uh, we know that the demand is there. We just don't know what supply looks like. Okay. Now the, uh, on, on the supply front again, uh, another happening event might be expected down the line in a couple years.
Do these events have any more significance to the price? Do you think it's definitely a diminishing return. I think a again, going from 25 to 12 and a half to six and a quarter. That's how many Bitcoins are issued? Every 10 minutes. And, you know, the next happening in four years is, is going from six and a quarter to, uh, just above three Bitcoins.
So it's definitely diminishing returns. I think now it's all about, eh, what's the Haldol ratio. Meaning how long are people going to hold the coins? They have. And the mix between retail and institutional demand, the demand side, uh, people have been telling me that some of the similar or the same macro drivers behind gold are now, also behind Bitcoin.
Do you agree with that statement? And the gold bugs are still goldbugs, there's very little overlap, uh, between, uh, kind of like people that, you know, like I hold gold and Bitcoin and, um, uh, in a, in a class of my own, there's not too many people that, uh, still bet on both horses at the same time. So I, I also don't see a lot of capital migrating directly from gold into Bitcoin.
I think it's a generational thing. And it's more about allocation either from the stock market or the bond market into Bitcoin then from, yeah. So you don't, you don't buy into this theory that a Bitcoin has been going up because money from gold has been flowing into Bitcoin or vice versa. Gold has been trending down because people are buying Bitcoin and dumping their gold.
That's not, you're not seeing evidence for that. I don't see enough evidence. I would say that gold is definitely not doing what it's supposed to, uh, with all the money printing and, uh, basically stock, uh, stocks at all time high and, you know, the dollar losing, uh, it at lowest level in two and a half years, you should see gold higher.
So there's definitely pressure on gold. And the question is, is it sovereign funds? Is it governments who need to fund some of their Corona issues? Or is this a crypto related? I would, I would give crypto the lowest chance of being the reason why gold is lower. Yeah. I want to touch on gold very briefly before talking about other cryptos goal has not behaved as it should have this year.
We're in the last few months. What do you mean by that? Well, anytime there's an increase in volatility, anytime, uh, that there's money printing. Anytime that. The dollar loses its value of gold should be going higher and here it should be setting new all-time highs, right? The goal should be setting new records and considering everything that's going on.
A global recession, pandemic money printing, like never before 10 times higher than ever before. And all that should be pushing gold higher. So I don't really have a very good explanation why gold is not doing what it's supposed to be doing. And again, there is probably a very large silver and fund or a government will find out that somebody has been dumping tens, if not hundreds of billions, of dollars in gold.
And then by the time we find that out prices are probably going to be higher already. So my point is, my point is now is a great time to buy gold. That's my point, it seem to me is that the dollar has been trending down, uh, in the last few months, but so has gold. Usually they move in opposite directions.
But now they're both going down. Yes, definitely not. It cannot be explained with just traditional economics. Yeah. I, I think, I think you're, it's interesting how you hold both gold and Bitcoin. You must think that they have different drivers then, right? Because if, if let's say. If I were somebody holding both bit coin and gold, and I think they have the same drivers, I would allocate more or all my capital to just one asset, I think has more upside, which might be Bitcoin.
So you hold both. Yeah. So, so they both have very different risk characteristics. So I agree with you that Bitcoin is definitely has much more upside. The risk reward on Bitcoin is dramatically higher, but the problem with Bitcoin is that it's a binary outcome. Either it wins and it's a dominant, uh, uh, store value or it doesn't.
So, uh, as I've said, many times, I still think you want to have about 60% in kind of traditional stocks. I don't hold almost any bonds. Eh, uh, and then 20% in gold and 20% in, uh, alternate assets, digital assets. Bitcoin being about half of that. Okay. Um, it sounds to me like you're a little bit, uh, less optimistic about Bitcoin for 2021 than you were in 2020, because the growth forecast that you're projecting is less than for 2020.
Tell me about, uh, Celsius networks, growth and assets. And can you give us a breakdown, first of all, of the assets that you manage, what's the percentage of Bitcoin and percentage and other coins. Yeah. So we were seeing all time record. We basically saw a huge acceleration since COVID kind of hit the Western world.
So in the February, March timeframe, we doubled our AUM assets under management in the last six months and just hit over 3.3, a billion dollars. And so today we are the second largest, uh, asset manager in crypto, behind gray scale. And, uh, we obviously growing faster than anybody else, including grayscale doubling every six months, a, our allocation internally has to do with more with what our customers choose rather than what we don't buy, really the assets we manage them for yield.
We manage them for loans and things like that. So, so we have about a 60% Bitcoin allocation, uh, from customers about 20% of ether. And the rest is in the 40 other, uh, old coins and, uh, and tokens. And which are, uh, most popular, you know, chain link, uh, uh, and so on. So definitely, uh, a lot of stable coins as well, which paid 10% yield.
So that's a very popular product, uh, with our community. Do you think the percentage of ether and the altcoins that you just mentioned will those, will those percentages increase you think in the future? Well, so one of the reasons to answer your previous question, this is we don't see Bitcoin going another five or 10 X in 2021.
Is that a lot of that capital, even though it lands on Bitcoin eventually finds its way to the theory of them or to some of the other projects. So Bitcoin is almost like a train stop or passenger come on and come off and go on different trains going forward. Right. So. So we definitely see a first money coming into Bitcoin, then it's going into Ethereum and other assets.
So we're, we're, we're, we're going to see a lot of seesawing in the price of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Yeah. Yeah. This is a, this is interesting. Is there a particular outcome that you, that you like, or that you think has a lot of potential cell token is our favorite? You know, we, uh, sell token is op uh, over 6000% this year.
So it's one of the best performing assets in the world. And it's, um, it also pays 5% yield. So it's a great that we think it's a great asset that, uh, obviously performed very well this year. Other, uh, great projects are, uh, again, chain-link, uh, we love, uh, USB-C, which is a stable coin that pays 10% yield. Uh, so there's plenty, like really all the acids that are curated in the Celsius wallet, uh, are things that we think will do well and pay pretty high yield.
So it's a combination of. Almost like a dividend stock, but also you have upside on the stock itself. So it's, so we think that those are much better performance. Like again, you, as DC, as an example, pays a hundred times more. Then giving your money to JP Morgan as an example, right. Where they pay 0.1%. All right.
Let's, let's talk about the economy now. I know you have lots of thoughts on, uh, the macro landscape. It's been a month since the election. So we have new policies to discuss. We have vaccines that are in the works of being rolled out, and we have a somewhat argue and improving economy. Let's talk about, uh, the biggest themes that you think are affecting investors for 2021.
So, yeah. Eh, so no matter who the president is, you're still in a tunnel and yes, we see a light at the end of the tunnel, but we have no idea how that long the tunnel is. So I do think that it's going to take longer than people expect to. Kind of cure a Corona and get everybody vaccinated and get the economy back to normal, which means we will have more social programs under the Biden administration.
More social programs means biotech companies and the new tech or, or digital economy stocks are going to do very well. But the rest of the economy is going to suffer very badly, meaning that, uh, uh, you know, like if you have a portfolio of the top 500 stocks, Half of your portfolio more is going to drag down the other half.
So, so you really don't want to buy the indexes. You want to buy either the digital economy or biotech, uh, because those guys are going to outperform the rest of the stock market. So like biotech right now, Alex book dinner, for example, doubled in value since November is that, is that if you see more growth ahead, So I think the vaccine companies, there are all, all that is already priced in a yes, there might be a little bit more upside when there's actual distribution.
And when people see that there are no side effects, hopefully. Um, but all, most of that is priced in. So I would definitely go a little bit further down the supply chain. And looking at people who either provide the services or provide some of the digital services. For example, seeing somebody got, uh, um, vaccine or not, or needles or all this other stuff that is needed continuously to deal with Corona.
I, I read that, uh, Pfizer's vaccine needs to be stored at a really, really cold temperatures. I think it's minus 70 degrees. So liquid nitrogen is needed. I wonder who makes liquid nitrogen? I hope it's minus 70 degrees Celsius because we only care about Celsius though. Nice one. Okay. Um, the digital economy, what do you mean by the digital economy?
What sectors of the digital economy will do well? So, so think about it this way, right? I mean, you, you can read all these futuristic books about how. Everything is going to be digital in the future. Well, guess what? It's not happening 10 years from now. It's happening right now. So when you see Amazon and you see zoom and Netflix and everybody hitting on all cylinders, it's because they're accelerating things that otherwise the adoption would have taken them 10 years.
It's happening immediately over, over 80% of us households now use Amazon prime. Right? So as an example, so, so it's a huge acceleration since March. So anything that has to do with, uh, digital delivery with, uh, with digital economy, meaning services you can consume via the internet versus going to a store or doing something in person.
Anything that has to do with that is going to accelerate dramatically because we have another year or so of this. Adoption accelerated adoption that is forced on people. They don't have a choice. They have to adopt these services if they want anything. I think investors don't disagree with you, Alex. I think that that is sort of the consensus here, but the issue is whether or not it's too late to get into the space, given where valuations are at.
And I think that's the dilemma investors are facing right now. So, yeah, I mean, when you look at Amazon and you see multi-trillion dollar valuations, right? It's difficult to convince yourself to invest in a company like that or Apple or somebody like that. But I think, uh, these types of companies, we've never seen companies of these size companies with this much adoption, billions of customers.
So, so I still think there's room there. These are not the high beta, uh, performance, right? If again, it depends. If you're looking for alpha, you're looking for beta, right? So you need some of the beta stocks and you need some of the alpha stocks. So the alpha stocks is going to be more of the smaller players, nature players who kind of figured out this or that, for example, how to figure out if somebody had the vaccine or not, like you're about to meet someone.
Right. Do they get vaccinated or not? Do you need a third party validation? So anyone who has that kind of service is definitely going to do well in the next. All right. So finally then asset allocation. Can you give us an insight as to how Alex Mashinsky will be investing his portfolio right now? Yeah, so I have over a hundred million dollars of my own money in Celsius, and it's all located again in exactly the same buckets that I spoke about before.
Eh, I do have a lot of, uh, stable coins. So USBC USDT, which are yielding very high yield and I'm waiting for a retrenchment in the stock market. For example, I'm allocating more into gold as gold goes lower and lower. So I'm averaging my price there and I'm also buying more Bitcoin and Ethereum. I don't look at the price I just buy every month.
I buy a little bit more. And, uh, obviously it worked very well in the first half of 2020. Now I'm paying full price, full fare, but my average is still lower than most people. So, so I think it's, it's, it's not about being a genius and figure out the market it's about doing your macro locations. And then following through doing that monthly allocations into savings.
Instead of spending it on the holidays or spending it on a vacation and having that money work for you, right. Being, meaning, having yield that is substantial enough to pay all your bills, to pay your, uh, kind of like ongoing expenses, which gets you into financial independence. Are you just, are you just telling people not to take vacations because you don't own cruise ship stocks, Alex, I'm telling people to take less vacations and buy less.
Gifts so they can save more and have their money work for them. That's what I'm asking people to do. Uh, I'm curious as to how you think about real estate right now, it's both an opportunity and the risk. I think it's early probably to kind of plow a lot of money into real estate. Again, I think the damage has just got started because too many people got a forbearance and were allowed to stay in their place and not pay the mortgages.
So we haven't seen the eviction yet. We haven't seen banks got a business or, or, uh, get bailed out. So all that has not hit us yet. Right. It's like a slow moving wreck and that, uh, the slow motion is an a thousand frames per second, instead of a 30 frames per second. So just take your time. There's going to be plenty of, uh, great opportunities.
It's early for real estate. Thanks very much, Alex, once again, another great talk. I look forward to following up with you again. Thanks, David, and thank you for watching. I'm David Linn. Stay tuned.