As 2022 draws closer, some cryptocurrency investment experts are doubtful almost whether Bitcoin (BTC) has enough time to hit $100,000 in 2022.

Following a major flash crash in the cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin is unlikely to break new best highs in the side by side 3 weeks and become all the way upwards to $100,000, according to Bitwise primary investment officeholder Matt Hougan.

"$100,000 past the stop of the year is a difficult prediction to make. [...] I think $100,000 could be in target in 2022 only this year, I'm not and then sure," Hougan said in a Monday interview.

He noted that a potential cryptocurrency rally in 2022 will exist largely thanks to growing institutional support. "I retrieve equally nosotros look into 2022, we still take these fundamental drivers, the institutions we speak to every solar day at Bitwise," Hougan said, adding that many institutions are still moving into the market place for the first time.

The CIO also predicted that 2022 will see an "explosion of action congenital on Ethereum" and layer-1 solutions, or those aiming to improve the base protocol itself to scale the overall system rather than creating a different protocol.

"Investors are going to be looking at Ethereum, Solana, or Polygon. Investors are starting to realize there's more than to crypto than but Bitcoin. If in that location's one bigger story for next year, it'south going to exist everything else: crypto every bit DeFi, NFTs, Web3, or metaverse," Hougan predicted.

While Hougan noted the growing potential of altcoins — or coins other than Bitcoin — some prominent figures in the crypto customs are all the same sticking with BTC.

Bobby Lee, founder and CEO of crypto hardware wallet Ballet, argued on Mon that Bitcoin is "more valuable" than altcoins because i is not backed by "any sort of project, or a hope that can fail."

The crypto community has been watching Bitcoin's cost closely this yr, with notable figures in the industry predicting BTC volition ha hit $100,000 by the stop of 2022, including Standard Chartered's cryptocurrency enquiry unit of measurement, stock-to-flow model creator PlanB, Morgan Creek Digital Avails co-founder Anthony Pompliano, SkyBridge Capital letter CEO Anthony Scaramucci and others.

Related: Bitcoin to striking $250K in Jan 2022 but 'invalidate' S2FX BTC cost model — New prediction

Others in the crypto community take taken a more than skeptical view.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $51,290, notably recovering afterward dropping below $47,000 on Saturday, according to data from CoinGecko. After starting 2022 at around $30,000, Bitcoin striking its all-time loftier to a higher place $67,000 in mid-November.

Bitcoin one-year price chart. Source: CoinGecko