Full record
MisscryptoThe fully loaded cost of mining a bitcoin rises to $9,000 by 2018-12-31.
A scored prediction by Tom Lee, made on .
Scored prediction
Misscrypto“The reason bitcoin looks really good here is the cost of mining around $7,000 fully loaded. And the difficulty is rising. So by the end of the year, it's going to be $9,000.”
The fully loaded cost of mining a bitcoin rises to $9,000 by 2018-12-31.
- Made on
- 2018-07-05
- Outcome
- Miss
- Importance
- 2 / 5
- Effect on score
- -0.89
What counted as right
- Status
- resolved
- Settled on
- 2018-12-31
Contemporaneous published estimates of the fully loaded (all-in) cost of mining one bitcoin as of 2018-12-31 put it at approximately $9,000, operationalized as a central estimate inside the $8,000 to $10,000 band from mainstream published sources (for example Fundstrat, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, CoinShares, Cambridge). If credible published estimates straddle that band with no discernible consensus, resolve unresolvable rather than guessing.
Criterion NOT met, and the miss is directional as well as numeric. Every contemporaneous (Nov 2018 - Jan 2019) published estimate of the fully loaded / all-in cost of mining one bitcoin clusters in a $3,750-$6,800 range: Fundstrat $5,700 fully loaded (2018-12-05), CoinShares ~$6,800 all-in marginal (2018-11-26), JPMorgan ~$4,060 production-weighted cash (Q4 2018), McCook ~$3,750 (Dec 2018 data). None reaches $8,000; the highest is $1,200 below the band floor. The criterion's 'straddle with no discernible consensus -> unresolvable' escape hatch is NOT triggered: the estimates do not straddle the band, they sit uniformly below it, and they agree on direction. Rather than rising to ~$9,000 as claimed, the fully loaded cost FELL through H2 2018 - Fundstrat's own series went $7,300 (Sept) -> $5,700 (Dec) - driven by bitcoin's price collapse and the second-deepest mining-difficulty drop on record (-15.3%) in early December 2018. Also relevant context, not scored here: Lee himself had already walked the figure down publicly, telling interviewers in October 2018 that bitcoin's ~$6,000 support 'equals the breakeven for mining costs'. One methodological caveat logged for transparency: 'fully loaded' is not a standardized term, and the four sources differ on scope (cash-only vs cash+depreciation vs all-in marginal) and on electricity-price and depreciation-schedule assumptions; however, the spread between the most and least inclusive estimates ($3,750 to $6,800) lies entirely below $8,000, so the resolution is insensitive to which definition is adopted. No outcome value assigned - quantification is a later stage.
Sources
Bitcoin bull Tom Lee wants Wall Street to know he didn't cut his year-end forecast
CNBC ·
Evidence of what happened
FXStreet, 2018-12-05, citing Fundstrat Global Advisors analyst Sam Doctor (Tom Lee's own firm, same 'fully loaded' methodology Lee cited in July 2018): Antminer S9 cash cost of mining one BTC was $4,500 (down from $5,300 in September), depreciation expense $1,300 (vs $2,000 in September), and 'fully loaded breakeven $5700, compared with a breakeven of $7300 in September'. This is the single most on-point contemporaneous estimate for the criterion, and it is $2,300 below the bottom of the $8,000-$10,000 band.
CoinShares, 'The Bitcoin Mining Network - Trends, Marginal Creation Cost, Electricity Consumption & Sources', dated 2018-11-26: 'the market-average, all-in marginal cost of creation, at c5/KWh, and 18-month depreciation schedules has increased from approximately $6,500 to approximately $6,800.' The report further notes the average miner is likely mining at electricity closer to c3/kWh or depreciating over 24-30 months, implying a lower effective all-in figure. At ~$6,800 this is the HIGHEST contemporaneous all-in estimate located, and still $1,200 below the band floor.
JPMorgan, 'Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies 2019: Adoption, Performance and Challenges' (published Jan/Feb 2019, measuring Q4 2018, i.e. the quarter containing the deadline): production-weighted average cash cost to create one bitcoin ~$4,060 globally in Q4 2018; average cash cost for a low-cost Chinese miner ~$2,400. Reported by South China Morning Post, 2019-02-21.
Hass McCook, 'Cost & Sustainability of Bitcoin (Dec 2018) - Executive Summary', published 2019-01-08 on December 2018 data: 'the model has estimated the average cost to mine one bitcoin to be roughly $3,750', with a realistic range of $3,000 to $4,000 depending on electricity price and hashrate assumptions.
Counter-check on the criterion's 'straddle' clause: the only mainstream estimate located INSIDE the $8,000-$10,000 band is Morgan Stanley's $8,600 breakeven (analyst Charlie Chan, at $0.03/kWh), but it is dated 2018-04-19 - roughly eight months BEFORE the deadline and before both bitcoin's H2-2018 price collapse and the record November/December 2018 difficulty drops. It is therefore not a 'contemporaneous published estimate ... as of 2018-12-31' under the criterion's own wording and does not create a straddle.
Corrections
No public corrections.
Effect on the score
-0.89- How sure they sounded
- 85%
- Outcome
- Miss
- Importance
- 2 / 5
This page shows the scored prediction as published; the site doesn't recompute or adjust the score.
Where this came from
The fully loaded cost of mining a bitcoin rises to $9,000 b…- Methodology version
- v1.0.0
- Last computed
- August 5, 2026
- Made on
- 2018-07-05
How this profile was built
Scored by independent judges
Predictions gathered and sourced
Independently verified against sources