FACT CHECK: Reddit Co-Founder Says Ether Will Reach $15,000

Alexis Ohanian, a co-founder of Reddit, misspoke when he said Ether (ETH) will reach $15,000 in 2018. He mean to say the much more reasonable $1,500.

I misspoke in that @Fortune piece: I meant to say 15-hundred not 15-thousand by end of year for #ETH. Still bullish, though! https://t.co/SwnCdEWQep

— Alexis Ohanian Sr. ? (@alexisohanian) May 3, 2018

The misspeak happened in a Fortune interview from May 2 and then was widely reported by crypto websites (I don’t feel like calling out any sites, Google “$15,000 Ethereum.”)

Ether’s price rose $100 after the news broke, however this shouldn’t be given too much weight. Ether has been on a bull run, and in a bull run like that bad news (like the fact that Ethereum, ICOs, and Ethereum-like crypto networks are all potentially securities under US law) gets pushed aside and good news (like Ohanian says Ether go to moon) is used as an excuse to rally.

Everyone likes a good Ether rally (I am no exception here), and it is likely it has more room to run (especially by the end of the year)… but like, if it goes to $15,000 it will be for a reason other than the Ohanian misspeak.

To be clear, Ohanian is still bullish on Ether, but he is a reasonable reclaiming the ATH bullish, not a McAfee $15k bullish.

TIP: The chart above is Ethereum’s price chart as it actually exists. As you can see it went from $5, to $1,400, to $360, to $800 in about a year (crazy year). $1,500 this year is clearly a real possibility, in fact it may be a conservative estimate. Meanwhile, $15k isn’t totally impossible. However, precedent for sub $400 also exists… and if things get bad, precedent for $5 is there too. People would be wise to entertain all possible worlds when investing so they don’t get caught off gaurd. McAfee was right when he said Bitcoin would go to $20k, but he was very wrong when he called $14k as the bottom, and it is prudent to keep these things in mind.