Bitcoin skeptics are getting a fresh round of gloom from an old familiar voice. Economist and gold advocate Peter Schiff has predicted Bitcoin will crash below $20,000, renewing his bearish call as the cryptocurrency slipped under $66,000. Schiff has been warning against Bitcoin for over a decade, and this week he’s back on the record with his most dire forecast yet.
The latest call
Schiff, a longtime gold bug and chairman of Euro Pacific Capital, took to social media to argue that Bitcoin’s recent price slide is just the beginning. He sees the asset heading toward $20,000 or lower — a level that would represent an roughly 70% decline from current prices. The timing of his prediction coincides with a broad market pullback that has dragged Bitcoin below the $66,000 mark, though the exact reason for the slip remains unclear. Schiff offered no new data to back his forecast, sticking to the same ideological case he’s made for years: Bitcoin has no intrinsic value and will eventually prove worthless.
A decade of skepticism
Schiff’s latest call isn’t a one-off. He’s been a consistent Bitcoin critic since the asset first broke into the mainstream, often predicting its demise during bull runs and corrections alike. In 2017, he warned of a bubble after Bitcoin topped $19,000; in 2021, he said the same as it neared $70,000. Each time, Bitcoin recovered and went higher — but Schiff hasn’t wavered. His track record is mixed: he’s been early and wrong on timing, but his fundamental critique — that Bitcoin lacks the stability and tangibility of gold — hasn’t changed. This week’s forecast is his most aggressive, targeting a sub-$20,000 collapse that would wipe out most of the gains from the last two years.
What the market sees
Bitcoin’s slide under $66,000 has rattled some traders, but the broader market isn’t panicking yet. The asset remains well above its 2022 lows, and institutional adoption continues to grow. Schiff’s prediction lands at a moment when regulators in the U.S. and Europe are tightening oversight, adding to near-term uncertainty. Still, there’s no sign of a mass sell-off — at least not yet. For Schiff, the price action simply confirms what he’s been saying all along. Whether this is the time he finally gets it right is the question hanging over the market.
