New technologies from the light-bulb to the radio, to the TV, to computers, to the internet, to the smart phone , and so on tend to go through various phases.

The main phases identified are:

Phases

Innovators and inventors phase
Early adopters phase
Early majority phase
Late majority phase
Mass adoption phase
Laggards phase

The meaning of the above phases should be obvious. Where do you think we are on the bitcoin phase?

The "S" curve

The rate of adoption of the technology is described by something known as the "S" curve. You can google it for more information.

After the initial invention, early adoption is slow, but then it starts to speed up as the early and late majority start to use the technology. Finally the pace of growth slows as the technology gets mass adoption and finally it stablilises when the laggards come in.

Magic word

If you have read this post this far, please include the magic word "hodl" in your comment and I will be sure to upvote you.

Below you can see my interpretation of bitcoin adoption rates, plotted against the projected bitcoin price using "S" curve methodology.

Below is the same chart but annotated with key price points you should look out for. It shows you the dates - according to the expected adoption rates when the price of bitcoin should hit the key mile-stones of $100, $1000, $10'000, $100'000 and 1 million. Accroding to the slope of the "S" curve, it should be very fast to move from $1'000 to $10'000, and from $10'000 to $100'000. However the move from $100'000 to $1 million should take much longer.

If you would like to see some real life examples of the "S" curve inaction on the prices of other securities, look at the 30 year charts of Apple or Microsoft using a log scale.

Lastly, below is a little table I produced last night to help you work out when you might become a bitcoin millionaire. It does not use the same more sophisticated "S" curve maths used in the charts above, but rather instead assumes that the price growth rate seen so far in 2017 continues for a number of years. As can be seen in the "S" curve graph above, it won't be straight line growth, so the longer dated price projections are unlikely to be achieved unless the US Dollar fails.

Disclaimer -The above is not investment advice

Whilst the charts above have been constructed using mathematical principals, the mathematics require the use of a number of variables which have to be estimated based on present or past trends. These variables may change, or the assumptions made may turn out to be wrong. As can be seen, the bitcoin price did not always track the price projection curve, and it may not do so in the future. Therefore please treat this research as being for fun only.

It is not financial advice. The future growth rate may be different from that derived by looking at the past. In fact lots of things could even cause the price of bitcoin to fall to, or near to, zero, or there may be no market at all.

Bitcoin is, after all, nothing but a series of digits in the ether that you can't eat or even use for firewood.

Don't invest more money than you would be willing to completely lose.

If contemplating an investment in bitcoin, imagine you are betting on a three-legged donkey, or a fat greyhound. How much would you risk?

Will your friends laugh at you if you buy bitcoin and then the price falls sharply. Will they say "You're a foll. I told you so".? Can you take that kind of ridicule? If not, tell nobody.

Will your spouse divorce you and the kids hate you if the price plunges 50% tomorrow? If the answer is "Yes", then bitcoin is not for you.

It has taken me a great deal of time and work to gather the information and to do the research to put this post together. I really hope that you l like it!

Seriously - this was days of research and hard work! I really hope that you like the effort I made to bring this to the Steemit community.