Setting Realistic Projections: How High Can The Majors Go?

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Price targets are critical to any crypto sell strategy, but knowing where to set them is often challenging. Below, I dive into why setting realistic targets is essential and explore the potential projections for BTC, ETH and SOL in the current bull market.

Setting realistic goals is core to any sound sell strategy. Instead of succumbing to fear of missing out (FOMO) and getting caught up in the bull market mania, it helps to have figures in place and an action plan ready.

A critical part of this is mapping out different scenarios for how high those cryptocurrencies could go.

Having a goal that is too unrealistic can be damaging and result in holding it all the way up and down (i.e., round-tripping), which means missing out on capitalising on the bull market.

Let’s use Sui (SUI) as an example, which currently has a market cap of $5.8B and an FDV of $21B.

We have two holders: James and Jim.

James heard social media influencers talk about SUI as the “next 100x opportunity,” which he uses as his target. For this to play out, SUI would need a market cap of $580B, making it more than 7x bigger than SOL’s current market cap and nearly double ETH’s.

If James is hellbent on holding until this market cap is hit, he might be waiting awhile!

On the other hand, Jim is targeting a 10x, meaning SUI would have a market cap of $50B. Although this lofty goal is much more achievable than James’s $500B figure.

In this analysis, I will cover the three top cryptocurrencies by market cap: BTC, ETH and SOL.

These are not intended to be financial projections, advice or valuations.

Instead, they are designed to help you keep your mind ticking so you can see whether your price predictions are realistic. They provide a baseline based on previous market cycles and projections of total market cap.

I’ll use simple projections to represent price and market cap targets and possibilities.

Before we dive into more analysis, let’s anticipate how high the total crypto market could go this cycle, which will help inform us of different price scenarios.

Based on the ‘bottom’ market cap hitting $800B during the FTX bottom, if we account for a total 500% growth, we hit a total market of roughly $5T. I will use this figure throughout the piece as my Moderate/Base (most likely) case.

There are a few ways to project BTC’s top for this cycle, which I’ve summarised below. To explore these simple projections, see below.

With fewer cycles under its belt, there is less historical data to compare prices to. However, we can use two similar price projections:

For ETH to achieve the much-hyped ‘$10,000’ mark, a lot must go right. In the moderate case, ETH’s dominance would need to hit 25%, and in the optimistic case, it would achieve a 15–20% market share.

It shows how big the market cap would grow to hit these $10,000+ price projections.

If ETH increases by ~300%, following the same trajectory as previous cycles, it could reach $7,000. This could provide a realistic base case for ETH this cycle.

SOL has even less historical data and cycles to compare, but we can extrapolate Solana’s second-cycle price projection based on ETH’s second-cycle growth.

The analysis shows that for SOL to hit levels between $800 and $1000, it’d require SOL to attain almost 10% dominance in the market and the total crypto market to hit the upper bound of $5–7T. It would also require SOL to hit a total market cap of over $400B, which is exceptionally high and could be challenging to maintain.

Therefore, a projection of $400-600 would be more realistic.

The inflation rate (i.e., the percentage of new coins/tokens issued divided by the current circulating supply) is worth considering when applying projections to SOL. According to Solana Compass, it is currently 4.96%. This compares to BTC and ETH, which have annual inflation rates of under 1.0%.

In general, the longer the bull market goes, the ‘harder’ it will be for SOL’s price to move, not to mention the large amounts of unlocks that BTC or ETH did not have to contend with.

Finally, the upper bound of SOL’s price could be limited to reaching Ethereum’s current market size. If SOL had the same market size as ETH today, it would mean a price of $652 per SOL.

I’ve reviewed various ways to consider how high prices can go through this cycle for the major cryptocurrencies. These are not sell targets but are designed to get you thinking about whether or not your existing sell targets are achievable.

Other factors such as token unlocks, demand drivers and adoption significantly impact whether a cryptocurrency can reach your target price.

Importantly, timing can be the most critical factor outside price, which we will cover in subsequent articles. For many, their exit is directly tied to historical timeframes.

The below graphic from Checkmate’s Checkonchain says we have another 100 to 300 days before a typical cycle peak.

If you enjoyed these insights, make sure to book an intro strategy call with our research partners over at Collective Shift.

DISCLAIMER: The information on this blog post is for general information purposes only. It is not intended as legal, financial or investment advice and should not be construed or relied on as such. Before making any commitment of a legal or financial nature you should seek advice from a qualified and registered legal practitioner or financial or investment adviser. No material contained within this website should be construed or relied upon as providing recommendations in relation to any legal or financial product. Block Earner does not recommend or endorse any particular token.