Mike Novogratz says bitcoin will be stuck around $45,000 for weeks after Elon Musk's tweets - but says ether is having a moment

• Mike Novogratz said bitcoin will be stuck somewhere between $40,000 and $50,000 for up to six weeks.
• Bitcoin has tumbled around 30% from record highs after Elon Musk criticized the token's energy use.
• Novogratz told Bloomberg that Ethereum's ether is "having a moment" and has many use cases.

Billionaire crypto investor Mike Novogratz has predicted bitcoin will be stuck somewhere between $40,000 and $50,000 for four to six weeks after Elon Musk halted Tesla payments in the token and criticized its energy use.

In interviews with Bloomberg, Novogratz also said ether - the Ethereum network's cryptocurrency - was "having a moment" because decentralized finance applications, stablecoins and non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, were being built on the system.

Novogratz called a $40,000 to $50,000 bitcoin price range fair and said: "I think we are going to consolidate for a while, four to six weeks." He added bitcoin may be stuck between $40,000 and $55,000 for the "next chapter" before ending the year much higher.

The former hedge fund executive said his crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital was buying bitcoin because it thinks it shouldn't dip below $42,000, the level that was tested on Monday.

Bitcoin was up around 1% to $45,097 on Tuesday. But it's still down 30% from the record high of near $65,000 hit in April, after a hint from Musk that Tesla may sell its bitcoin holdings caused a further sharp fall on Monday. Musk later clarified Tesla had not sold any bitcoin, which it bought for $1.5 billion in January.

Although Musk's actions have angered many figures in the bitcoin community, Novogratz said the Tesla boss's concerns should be taken at face value.

"We use electricity for things that we think provide a tremendous amount of value. And so I think you're going to see a response from this industry, like you should see a response from every industry, to say... we should do something to offset our footprints," he said.

Novogratz said the traditional financial world was become increasingly excited about ether, the token on the Ethereum network.

"ETH is certainly having a moment, and it's having a moment for good reason," he told Bloomberg TV.

"Right now, it's got the triple whammy. It's got payment coins, i.e. stablecoins, being built on top of it. It's got DeFi [decentralized finance] being built on top of it, and it has NFTs [non-fungible tokens] being built on top of it. So the three major thrusts of the crypto revolution are being built on top of Ethereum."

Yet Novogratz would not say whether he thought ether could climb higher, after having risen by around 370% year-to-date to $3,500 on Tuesday. He said it would be "healthy" if ether consolidated where it was.