VanEck CEO Jan Van Eck Said Bitcoin Would Hit a New All-Time High on Friday, and It Did

It's hard to say if there's any connection, but right around the time VanEck CEO Jan Van Eck was on CNBC saying bitcoin would hit a new all-time high on Friday, BTC did just that

VanEck CEO Jan Van Eck predicted Friday that bitcoin will hit a new all-time high by the end of the week, and his wish came true: BTC briefly surpassed $77,000 for the first time ever on Friday.

"Bitcoin's going to hit all-time highs—hit them today and I think it's going to go further," Van Eck said on CNBC's "ETF Edge" when asked if he thought bitcoin is headed to $100,000. "My basic premise is ultimately bitcoin's value will be half of that of all the gold outstanding so you're talking about something like $300,000 for bitcoin."

He didn't give specific reasoning for his "half of...all the gold outstanding" theory but said he thought it was a "reasonable base assumption."

Van Eck's comments came as bitcoin's price continued to surge, fueled in part by the recent U.S. presidential election, which saw Donald Trump win the race to the White House. Some analysts have predicted that bitcoin will benefit from a Trump administration, given his statements in support of digital assets.

After the election on Tuesday, bitcoin's price was up nearly $10,000, or roughly 15%, from pre-election levels.

Meanwhile, BlackRock's spot bitcoin ETF, the largest by market cap, has been enjoying heavy trading and inflow volume since Trump's victory.

Van Eck's firm also offers investors a spot bitcoin ETF, and he noted in the CNBC interview that individual investors have been "piling into the bitcoin ETFs."

Bitcoin's price shot up on Friday afternoon, briefly eclipsing $77,200 before then falling to $76,761.63 as of 4:05 p.m. ET, according to The Block Price Page.