What Went Wrong? Tom Lee Breaks Down Post-Consensus Market Rally Flop, Remains Bullish on Bitcoin

Fundstrat Global managing partner and notorious Bitcoin bull Tom Lee has reaffirmed his prediction of a $25,000 Bitcoin end-of-year price despite underwhelming post-Consensus cryptocurrency market performance.

The Consensus conference, which ran in New York from May 14-16, is widely considered the most important event on the blockchain calendar.

"Already one of the largest crypto conferences in the world, attendance this year is up dramatically and coming at a time when Bitcoin/Crypto is down YTD. Hence, we expect the Consensus rally to be even larger than past years."

Consensus rallies in previous years have seen Bitcoin prices skyrocket - optimistic projections of a potential 2018 Consensus rally would have seen the cryptocurrency climb back to the $15,000 level.

Consensus 2018 came and went without any positive market action at all.

The Consensus 2018 rally failed to launch, according to Lee, due to three key points of failure.

Months of regulatory uncertainty led many market participants to look forward to the conference as a precursor to a market confidence surge, but a failure to provide clarity on the issue of regulation delivered only disappointment.

Lee focuses on a lack of regulatory opacity as a key driver of the Consensus 2018 sell-off, stating that consensus on a regulatory framework around crypto from the SEC is critical in order to catalyze "Broad cultural buy-in by institutional investors."

The recent launch of Coinbase Custody announced over the course of Blockchain Week, is set to provide institutional investors with the financial architecture necessary to enter the market en masse.

"Bitcoin doesn't have to go up every day to move from $8,000 to $25,000. The ten best days account for all the return of bitcoin in a year. If you didn't own bitcoin for ten days each year, you lost 25 percent each year."