Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse expects Bitcoin to reach $180,000 next year

Bitcoin will trade at $180,000 by the end of 2026 – or at least that’s what Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse predicted onstage at Binance Blockchain Week in a panel on the future of crypto.

While he didn’t provide specific reasons for the prediction, the Ripple frontman shared that continued regulatory progress in the United States will be a catalyst for the entire crypto market. He specifically pointed to the stalled market structure law, called the CLARITY Act.

“We broadly called for regulatory clarity for crypto in what is commonly referred to in the United States as the CLARITY Act,” Garlinghouse said. While he doesn’t think that will happen this year, “we will see legislation passed sometime in the first half of next year that will continue to unlock the entire sector and create more tailwinds.”

Like Garlinghouse, users of Myriad, a prediction market operated by DeclutterDastan’s parent company also believes that the Senate Banking Committee is unlikely to pass a crypto market structure bill by 2026, leaving the odds only 25% in favor of its passage before the year ends.

Fellow Garlinghouse panelists, Solana Foundation President Lily Liu and Binance CEO Richard Teng, were not as bold as the Ripple executive in making price predictions: Liu said Bitcoin would be “above $100,000” by the end of next year, while Teng added that the price would be “stronger” than it is today.

Garlinghouse’s 2026 forecast comes as the clock closes on the previously bold year-end predictions from BitMine Immersion Technologies Chairman Tom Lee and Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor.

Lee, that one before projected Bitcoin to reach $150,000-$200,000 by the end of the yearsoftened its tone in late November, instead suggesting the top crypto asset could “perhaps” reach $150,000.

Saylor has stayed true to its year-end forecast of $150,000even after one record-breaking $19 billion was liquidated off the market at the beginning of October.

His longer-term predictions assume Bitcoin will reach $1 million per coin in the next four to eight years, and a Bitcoin price of $20 million in the next twenty years.

The longer-term outlook is similar to that of noted tech investor Cathie Wood, which recently cut its 2030 interest rates target from $1.5 million per Bitcoin to $1.2 million due to the rapid growth of stablecoins.

Bitcoin has recovered over the past week and is now up about 1% in that time to change hands at $92,417. Forecasters on Myriad have turned bullish during that period, now overwhelmingly in favor of a jump to $100,000 before a dump to $69,000.

The largest crypto asset by market cap is now 27% below its all-time high. It will need to rise about 95% and handily surpass its current all-time high above $126,000 to reach Garlinghouse’s forecast mark.