The collective celebration of Bitcoin at the beginning of the year now seems a bit ironic.

Wall Street's well-known bull Tom Lee recently changed his tune quietly. His year-end prediction was initially $250,000, but has been revised downward to "maybe recover" at $125,100. This is not just a shift for one person but a collective failure of the entire market forecasting system.

Remember the end of 2024 to early 2025? At that time, Bitcoin was basking in the halo of halving expectations and the approval of spot ETFs, with the $200,000 figure repeatedly mentioned. A rare consensus formed in the market: reduced supply, institutional influx, improved regulation—a seemingly clear upward path lay ahead.

But what is the reality? Bitcoin in 2025 repeatedly fluctuated, occasionally dropping, with the year-end price showing a significant gap from the mainstream predictions at the start of the year. The market did not follow that smooth, one-sided upward trajectory expected.

So how did this consensus in predictions come about? On one hand, Wall Street bulls like Tom Lee emphasized institutional allocations and macro tailwinds; on the other hand, Cathie Wood and her team argued from the perspective of long-term adoption rates and structural deflation, advocating for higher valuation potential. The core support for market optimism was the approval of Bitcoin spot ETFs. The batch of ETFs approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2024, especially BlackRock's iBIT fund, became one of the most successful ETF launches in 35 years.

Traditional financial institutions finally had a legitimate way to enter, and the market's interpretation was simple: floodgates open, institutions rush in, and prices naturally soar. But the story did not unfold as scripted.