Where we heard itCNBC’s Squawk Box, Oct. 5, 2026, with Tom Lee, Fundstrat’s head of research and chairman of BitMine, interviewed by Joe Kernen. Scored against bitcoin’s daily closes through Oct. 27.
On Oct. 5, Tom Lee told CNBC that the wait for bitcoin’s four-year cycle to end was over. Bitcoin had set its record close one year earlier, and in past cycles the bottom came about a year after the top. Lee said that date had arrived, and he added a target: “Bitcoin’s going to close above 100,000 this year.” BitcoinBTC closed that day at $85,787.
By Oct. 27, three weeks later, the call was behind. Bitcoin closed that day at $80,800, 5.8% below its Oct. 5 close, and it had not closed above the Oct. 5 level on any of the 22 days in between. We first wrote up the call the morning after Lee made it. Here is how it scores now.
The Calendar Part Checked Out
Lee’s timing rests on a real pattern. In each of bitcoin’s last three four-year cycles, the lowest close came 363 to 406 days after the record: 363 days after the December 2017 peak, 378 after the November 2021 peak and 406 after the December 2013 peak. Oct. 5, 2026 was day 364 after the Oct. 6, 2025 record close of $124,753. By the calendar, Lee picked the textbook day.
The prices did not follow the calendar. This cycle’s lowest close so far was $58,559 on June 30, about 53% below the record and three months before Lee’s date. Past cycles fell much further, 77% to 84% from top to bottom.
Past bitcoin cycles bottomed about a year after the peak, as Lee’s timing assumed. This one’s lowest close so far came in June.
Bitcoin’s daily close, as a percentage below its record close, counted in days from each cycle’s peak. Gray: the peaks of December 2013, December 2017 and November 2021. Coral: the Oct. 6, 2025 peak, through Oct. 27, 2026.
So the chart supports half of the idea. If the cycle holds, a smaller, earlier low in June could already be the bottom, and bitcoin closed Oct. 27 38% above it. What the chart does not support is the specific claim that Oct. 5 was the low: bitcoin closed lower on every day from Oct. 6 through Oct. 27, down to $80,007 on Oct. 26.
The $100,000 Test
The second half of the call has a deadline. To close 2026 above $100,000, bitcoin needs to gain 23.8% from its Oct. 27 close, with 57 days left in the year from Nov. 4. It ended 2025 at $87,509, so it is down 7.7% this year. It sits 35.2% below its record close.
Lee saw some of this coming. On Squawk Box on Jan. 5, he said that “if you follow the four-year cycle, Bitcoin should be down this year,” though he expected tailwinds to help it recover. He also said that “gold rallies typically lead Bitcoin rallies.” That lead has not shown up yet: gold futures rose 64% in 2025 while bitcoin fell 6.3%, and in 2026 through Oct. 27 gold is down too, by 6.1%.
Lee’s call, by the numbers
Lee’s Bitcoin Record
Lee has put dates on his bitcoin calls before, which makes them easy to score. In July 2018 he told CNBC that “we still think bitcoin can reach $25,000 by the end of the year,” according to CNBC’s report. Bitcoin ended 2018 at $3,743. In 2024 he said bitcoin would top $100,000 that year, and it did: it first closed above that mark on Dec. 8, 2024, and peaked at $106,141 that month.
His next target, $250,000 by the end of 2025, missed by the widest margin since 2018. Bitcoin finished 2025 at $87,509. In a Nov. 26, 2025 CNBC interview, as reported by Cointelegraph, he scaled back to saying bitcoin would “very likely” be above $100,000 before year-end. Its best close in the rest of 2025 was $93,528. On Squawk Box in January, host Joe Kernen noted that Lee’s bitcoin numbers were not hit. “It did not,” Lee replied.
That makes one hit in four for the dated calls whose deadlines have passed. The stock side of his record is better: Lee’s year-end S&P 500 targets came true in three of the four years from 2022 to 2025, by our count.
What to Watch
The cycle test is simple. If bitcoin stays above its June 30 close of $58,559, this cycle will have bottomed earlier and higher than the last three, which still fits Lee’s broader view that the worst is over. The $100,000 test is a single number: the Dec. 31 close. Bitcoin was already down 33% over the year in early October, so the rally Lee expects would have to come quickly.
Lee also tied crypto to the election. On Oct. 5 he said crypto had stalled on worries that Democrats would not support the Clarity Act, the crypto market-structure bill, and argued that after the midterms they would start supporting it. Whatever the final count shows, that view will be tested in the next Congress.
Lee’s Oct. 5 date matched the timing of past bitcoin bottoms, about a year after the peak. Through Oct. 27, bitcoin had closed below its Oct. 5 level every day since, and it needed a 24% gain to meet his $100,000 year-end mark. His record on dated bitcoin targets is one hit in four, so the deadline matters more than the conviction.