Can Bitcoin Reclaim $100k This Year After Slipping Below $80k? AI Models Weigh In

Sam Daodu

Mon, May 18, 2026 at 4:45 PM EDT 9 min read

Quick Read

• Bitcoin trades around $77,000, well below the $100,000 mark it held most of last year. We asked four AI models to weigh in on whether BTC could still reach $100K this year.

• ChatGPT held its Bitcoin forecast of $110,000-$150,000, Grok trimmed from $250,000 down to $130,000-$180,000, and Gemini cut from $220,000 to $100,000-$140,000—all three still see Bitcoin reclaiming $100K, but each model now adds specific conditions tied to the CLARITY Act and the Fed under new Chairman Kevin Warsh.

• Claude remains the only major AI model that doesn’t see Bitcoin reaching $100,000 in 2026, sticking with its $75,000-$95,000 range and citing the 200-day moving average rejection at $82,455 plus the March 2022 parallel as confirmation that the cycle top is already in.

• Polymarket traders give Bitcoin roughly 51% odds of hitting $100,000 by year-end and 87% odds of holding above $80,000.

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Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) trades around $77,000, which is well below the $100,000 mark it held for most of last year. Last week, the Bitcoin price was pushing toward $82,000 as the CLARITY Act moved through the Senate. However, despite the bill advancing, the Bitcoin price lost the $80,000 and $78,000 support levels. If a regulatory win that big can't lift BTC back to $80,000, what would it actually take to get to $100,000 this year?

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Two months ago, when the Bitcoin price was near $73,000, we asked five AI models if Bitcoin would reclaim $100,000 in 2026. Four said yes, with only Claude saying no. With BTC now back below $80K, we asked the AI models again if the price could still hit $100K again this year.

ChatGPT Still Sees Bitcoin Hitting $150K Bitcoin

ChatGPT is sticking with its March forecast. The AI model still sees Bitcoin trading between $110,000 and $150,000 by year-end, with $180,000 as the bullish case. ChatGPT thinks most of the damage came from one bad day. On May 13, the Bank of Japan signaled foreign bond dumps, PPI came in hot at 6%, and Kevin Warsh got confirmed as Fed Chair—all in 24 hours. That was a one-day pile-up of bad news, not institutions actually leaving.

Moreso, ETF demand is doing the heavy lifting. Spot Bitcoin ETFs pulled in $3.29 billion across March and April, with institutions buying up what's left after the April 2024 halving cut new BTC issuance in half. Last week's outflows erased $1.26 billion of that, but cumulative inflows since January 2024 still stand at $58.5 billion. However, ChatGPT treats one-week flow reversals as noise, not real signal.