The Galaxy Investment Partners creator, who is known for his optimism about Bitcoin’s future, had previously called a “bottom” in the market in mid-September.

Now, he thinks more time is required for momentum to build to take prices higher, and the long-anticipated wave of institutional investors piling into the cryptocurrency space will only occur next year.

Mike Novogratz: Institutions Will Get Into Bitcoin in Q1-Q2 2019 Bringing ‘New Highs’ – Investor and cryptocurrency bull Mike Novogratz has fine-tuned his Bitcoin price outlook, repeating to Bloomberg Monday, October 15, that it would not break $10,000 in 2018.

“…I think Q1 [or] Q2 [2019] if the institutions start coming in, we’ll put in new highs,” he told the network.

Novogratz was speaking the day Fidelity Investments announced it would release a custody solution tailored to such institutional investors looking for security when interacting with cryptoassets.

While this was a boon for Bitcoin, Novogratz said, the solution needed testing prior to it attaining mass interest based on investor trust.

“They’ll probably be up and running in January or Q1,” he continued.

“And then you’ve got to run some water through the pipes, so my guess is you start seeing institutional flows into purely cryptoassets late first quarter [or] early second quarter.”

Other finance commentators have so far stuck to more daring price predictions for the end of this year meanwhile, Fundstrat Global Advisors analyst Tom Lee for instance maintaining a possible $25,000 Bitcoin price by the new year.

In late September, Lee further forecast Ethereum (ETH) rising to $1,900 within the same timeframe – 40 percent more than its record highs.