$1 Million Dollar Bitcoin, Really? (Convince me for a chance to win SBD inside!)
If you haven't seen the latest headline out quoting Mark Yusko, you can check it out here:
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/stock-market-bear-sets-1-million-bitcoin-price-target/
Basically he is calling for a $1 million dollar Bitcoin price within the next 10 years, and a base-case of $500k with a 75% likelihood over the same time period.
Sounds great, but...
My opinion, this is all getting a little ridiculous.
I am all for being bullish, and I am a strong believer in the technology and have have high hopes that Bitcoin (or some other cryptocurrency) does catch as a store of value that captures a percentage of the precious metals market (at the very least), but $1 milllion dollar price targets?
I honestly feel like saying things like that do more harm than good as people see numbers like that dominating the headlines and think how ridiculous that sounds...
It makes Bitcoin and the entire space look even more like a bubble that anything else.
However, to his credit, I do understand his argument.
He is basically saying that over the next decade, best case scenario, he could see bitcoin taking enough share from the precious metals markets to achieve a $1 million dollar price point.
Basically he is saying that Bitcoin will be a store of value that is widely owned.
Ok, that might be true, but how likely is that to actually happen?
Yusko went on to say that he thinks Bitcoin has a 75% likelihood of reaching $500,000 within the next decade as his base case scenario.
Wow.
Not sure how he came up with that 75% number but ok, I will play ball.
To counter that, we are already seeing Bitcoin catch flack from every direction right now. From Wall Street to major countries around the world who are either banning it, regulating it, or creating their own.
And this is all happening around the $5k price point...
Do we really think they are going to stand by and let the price run all the way up to $500k or $1 million?
I think there is very little chance of that happening.
Sorry to rain on the parade...
If Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies really start to catch on I think we will see governments step in and step in, in a big way.
They will create govcoin, which will run parallel to whatever their fiat currency is. Over time govcoin will gain traction as people find it easier to transact in than holding large amounts of cash.
Taxes and government programs will all be paid in fiat or govcoin of course, which is what is really needed for these things to catch on.
Sorry to be a downer, and I wish I saw things some other way, but the more I think about things and the more I study these things, this is the conclusion I keep coming back to.
We are already seeing the beginnings of this with Russia, China, and possibly even Japan.
What I need from you?
I really don't like believing what I just posted above and would thoroughly like to be convinced otherwise, so please tell me how and why I am wrong in the comments section below.
That's it, that's all you have to do.
If I find an answer that is convincing enough to change my mind I will pay out 10% of this post's earnings to the author.
Thanks for playing and let the convincing begin!
Stay informed my friends.
Sources:
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/stock-market-bear-sets-1-million-bitcoin-price-target/
Image Sources:
https://expertbeacon.com/use-giveaway-or-contest-supercharge-your-marketing-efforts/#.WeeVFdNSyM8
https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2017/09/11/cloud-foundation-captionvcf-contest/
Follow me: @jrcornel
First, thank you for your great article again. I love the fiery passion that runs through it. I also believe that Bitcoins won't get to the $1 Millions Dollars worth and here's my two cents on it:
Well, I don't believe Bitcoin will live long enough of an efficient time for it to get to this price tag. Its limitations, regarding both its scaleability and, foremost, its huge demand of electrical power to fulfil the "mining" prerequisites.
First, as time goes by, I strongly believe people will come to the realization that its scalability is unfortunately slowing down the process of transactions way too much for it to be enough of an efficient line to transact through. From there, more and more people will be looking for alternatives that have been mushrooming since the inception of the Elder of all cryptocurrencies. Then, they will want to move toward infinite scalability and efficacy, the inevitable powerful giants such as BitShares which allows for infinite scalability and an unseen speed will start to take over once and for all. The price of Bitcoins will stabilize and even start to slowly go down.
In terms of efficacy, the electrical demand is monumental and extremely taxing on the mining centres, whether they are small or huge, this is a very costly enterprise both for the environment as well as for the people involved in making the system of Bitcoin function. Since the fully decentralized options are there and eliminating this matter once and for all, it is also my contention that people will move away from this such processes and delve into platforms that are as streamlined as can be. Again, BitShares is a more than viable option here.
Thanks for this great opportunity to share these thoughts with you all on a subject that has been close to my heart for a solid 10 years already as well as for the time you have involved in reading this answer. Namaste :)
I thoroughly agree that the limitations on the efficacy of bitcoin you mention are going to put serious restraints on its wide spread adoption in commerce. A contender will emerge from within the alt-sphere to carry the mantle of usefulness in he day-to-day economic sphere. Bitshares does have a shot at being that contender. Let's hope it is not a "govcoin" that takes the prize!
No it will not a govcoin.. bitshares is a good contender but it can depend on so many uncertain factors....
(did you look at my witness profile, for example you have some votes for some people who stopped a long time ago as witness... I would be so happy if I can make progression)
First, you mention that governments will create “govcoins” which I completely agree and is already starting to happen. But govcoins will not be a good store of value just like fiat currencies are not a good store of value, so Bitcoin can still exist as a go-to store of value in a world with govcoins.
So now that I’ve (hopefully) established that Bitcoin can persist as a good store of value, the question is can the price go up to $1M within the next 10-20 years. A $1M Bitcoin price would put the market cap of bitcoin at $21 trillion (21M coins * $1M).
The current estimated market cap of all of the already mined gold in the world is around $8 trillion. This is primarily used as a store of value, and I think that most of us can agree that Bitcoin is much, much better than gold for that purpose. One of the main things holding Bitcoin back right now is the difficulty around safely investing in it, especially in a retirement account. Over time it will become easier and easier for people to invest safely in Bitcoin through their retirement funds or other investment vehicles and that’s when it will really start to take off.
When people holding gold (or anything else really) start hearing about their cousins/neighbors/etc making far greater returns in Bitcoin, and they can easily invest in it through their retirement accounts etc., then they will slowly but surely start to sell their gold and switch it to Bitcoin. As people start slowly selling gold (and other traditional stores of value), the price will start to drop, which will push more people to sell and create a snowball effect that ends with the vast majority of that $8+ trillion being shifted to Bitcoin.
So we have $8 trillion market cap from gold, and I think there will be a good bit more from other precious metals and other stores of value. The next piece is a potential crash/recession/instability/etc in the US. With the way things have been going here recently that seems entirely possible and many “smart money” people are predicting it. Under such a scenario other traditional stores of value such as real estate could once again lose value and push even more money into Bitcoin, and additionally it will lead to inflation and devaluation of the US dollar.
I think it’s not crazy to think that we could see as much as a 50% drop in the value of the US dollar over the next 10 - 20 years if there aren’t some serious changes in the US (which there never really are). In that case Bitcoin would only need to reach a $10.5 trillion market cap in today’s dollars to be valued at $1M / coin after a 50% drop in the value of a dollar 10 - 20 years from now.
So the $8 trillion from gold plus at least $2.5 trillion from other stores of value switching to Bitcoin coupled with issues in the US leading to a ~50% drop in the value of a dollar gets us to $1M Bitcoin. This doesn't even take into account any "lost" Bitcoins - Bitcoins to which the private key was lost or which were sent to an address for which no private key is known. There are plenty of stories of this happening already and who knows how much will be lost in the future when people get in who don't know what they're doing.
Will it really happen? I don’t know…but it’s not as crazy as it sounds. I for one am buying up what I can, including setting up a self-directed IRA to invest in it with some of my retirement funds because I don’t want to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity.
You have my vote. It took many tries to give it to you, but it eventually went through!
One other point to add that makes your argument even stronger is that the 21 million coins won't be reached until over 100 years from now. The market cap should be closer to $20 trillion than $21 trillion for $1 million bitcoin in 10 years. I tried to find a website that provides an estimate on bitcoin in circulation for x date, but couldn't find one.
This was the closest that I could come up with:
https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-f8b0e3b5a495cd5dd96ab310c15d4a71
Thanks, yes you're right - I didn't include that not all of the Bitcoin will have been mined by then!
Also when SteemIt isn't working I use busy.org or even steemkr.com (and translate to english!)
Great comment. I guess my question is more along the lines if governments will actually allow it to happen? Perhaps I am giving them too much credit, but as of today, they can do just about anything they want with very little resistance. If they choose to push bitcoin and all the other altcoins underground and push govcoin on their people, there isn't much that can be done. Yes Bitcoin, or some other coin will exist outside of the government's reach, but it won't be worth $100 Billion, let alone $21 Trillion...
I don't think governments have any reason to "not allow" Bitcoin to exist as a store of value, just like they don't have any reason stop gold from being used as a store of value. They very much have reason to stop Bitcoin or any other decentralized cryptocurrency from replacing their fiat currency, which is why they are working to just create their own crypto-fiats or "govcoins", but using decentralized crypto as purely an investment / store of value doesn't threaten governments at all.
So I certainly cannot predict the future, but I aimed to convince you that $1M / Bitcoin is entirely in the realm of realistic possibility.
You make a great point, very similar to that of Mark Yusko. :)
Basically that it doesn't have to be much more than a store of value to reach those levels.
So did I convince you? :-D
I am leaning that way, but not fully decided just yet. You will find out for sure come payout of this post ;)
Cool, maybe today's price action will push you over the edge?! Although I do expect a correction before going over $6k like when it first got close to $5k.
I contest that if they were capable of these things they would have done them long ago. I can also say that the bankers who run most of the worlds governments, the Rothschilds, aren't as all powerful as they would like us to think. They're the ones who's Corporations are in liquidation as we speak and hardly in a position to do much else but comply with the people that have foreclosed their corporations. The revolution will not be televised, the Currency Reset has begun 10 years ago when people realized that no Mortgages existed and all such contracts were intent to defraud. Ever since then people continued to awaken to the reality of No Equal Consideration and no Equitable Interest in the Property.
Is this "govcoin" going to be decentralized? Or is big brother going to always be in the driver's seat with their power to one button press "insta-freeze" all your digital funds?
Let's not forget the power of a peer to peer decentralized system/ currency. What you're suggesting will take over is a centralized digital currency and while I agree that there's a reasonably good chance the majority of people living in this seriously messed up paradigm that we call "society" will prefer the government controlled currency, there will always be a vast amount of people who're a few standard deviations to the right of "average" that will never, ever consider that the superior form of currency and especially not the ideal store of value, and I mean hundreds of millions of people when I say this.
Will govcoin promise us a cap at 21 million coins in circulation? And, if they do, why should we trust them? What's that saying again? Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice... How many times have we been lied to by politicians? Shame on all of us! (We're either idiots or cowards, or both, there are no other possibilities).
Pandora's box has been blown up by a hydrogen bomb of collective epiphanies around the globe. Enough people realize the immense value of removing the "authority within the minority" element from decision making that rules all of us today to let it all just slip away and vanish like a fart in the wind.
Bitcoin, or some altcoin like it, will always exist. There will always be one or more of these cryptocurrencies that will have a large percentage of people who pour their energy and their dollars into it/ them. Why? Because a large percentage of people are intelligent and very aware of the value inherent in this technology. They will not allow it to die, regardless of how hard the government(s) may push to kill it and/or persecute those who choose to continue using it.
I'm of the opinion that a growing number of people are starting to share in a belief that the potential of this technology is SO promising that they're grounds for a bloody revolution, should it come to that unfortunate situation. I don't think that it will go that far, but it should be clear how much value is perceived to be there if people are willing to form a coup to protect it.
When an important thrust forward in evolution presents itself, it's no time to be an idiot and especially not cowardly. Let's be on the right side of history, all of us, governments included!... please, pretty please!!!
Great comment. I agree with this, my only response is that in that above scenario, (one where governments basically force bitcoin and others to the underground) what kind of market cap can we reasonably expect a token to have in that environment? I agree that it will be well above zero, but I could probably make a pretty strong argument that it would be less than $100 Billion, which is close to where we are already today, let alone that $1 million dollar number...
In summation, Bitcoin (or something like it) will always exist, but how much value will it have?
Hmm. Well, I might have a deluded sense of where crypto is at in terms of overall awareness and adoption, but I get the sense, based on the buzz that's only just started stirring up around me among other things, that we're nearing a significant "tipping point" (one that could easily flood the market with hundreds of billions, if not trillions more dollars in the next year), if we haven't already reached it, so Big Brother better act quick if he wants to put a stop to this momentum.
Once a certain level of overall public awareness about the strengths of "proper" (decentralized) cryptos is reached, there isn't going to be any stopping the momentum from tearing away everything underground and above it, if you catch my drift.
How would we react if the government were to suddenly make it illegal to use the internet after all these years of experiencing its wonderful benefits? Would it make us feel any better if they replaced it with a watered-down version complimented by strict rules and extreme censorship? Hell no! It's salt in an open wound. While we certainly aren't there yet with crypto, we're quickly approaching it.
It behooves the whole world for revolutionary technology to expand out to become all that it can be. Early adopters have been getting a taste of it for years now -- what can be and what already is (improved). It may only be an appetizer, but no one wants to settle for Hamburger Helper after eating a five-star appetizer and that's precisely what govcoin will be after having a taste of the current free-market competition between cryptos.
So, to make a weak attempt at answering your question, it depends on if and (if so) when the government flexes its muscles on the crypto adoption movement. If it happens like, literally, tomorrow, if they were to literally make it illegal to own any type of crypto, then we might, MIGHT have already seen the highest market cap that we'll ever see, but I doubt that's even true in this uber worst case scenario (the rebels of the world will keep the flame alive and it will grow underground is how I see it unfolding, if a downright, blood in the streets, revolution doesn't happen).
If, on the other hand, they scratch their butts for a few more months and pretend to listen to each other at their round tables about present threats (to their position) as they so often do, then this thing is going to blow up like the internet did in the mid nineties, only a factor or two higher in scale. And, who knows, maybe they don't mind that happening. Maybe they'll increase their wealth 100 fold, relative to the average citizen, during this event.
75% chance of 500k, I was stunned by that # too. And if you do any probability weighting you know it has big implications.
Ini adalah contest terbesar yang pernah saya lihatt disini, saya yakin ini bukan kontes biasa dan disini pasti orang-orang hebat yang mengikutinya.
SP500 Market cap is around 20million
Bitcoin max coins is 21million
[logical thinking]
profit
Ps, its ok to vote in our own posts? i'm kinda new here...
I think the chance of Bitcoin getting there on its own are low but there are some other factors that might come into play over the next decade. As much as it pains me to say this America is in some really bad shape right now. Stocks,real estate and bonds are in a bubble and we are wayover due for a crisis. If that bubble pops a lot of money might flow into Bitcoin. Not just that but this next crisis might also be a dollar crisis. The Rothschild's are dumping off a lot of their dollars. Russia and China re selling off us Treasuries for gold. Venezuela dropped the petrol dollar and Russia is dropping the dollar at all of its ports. If you look at history going all the way back to the 1400 a country whose currency was being used as the world reserve currency usually had a lifespan of 90-140 yrs. The dollar has been the world reserve currency for about 100 yrs now and it's days are numbered. All it would take is another oil producing country to drop the petrol dollar and it could all come tumbling down. And Trump hasn't been that nice to Iran lately. If the dollar goes into hyperinflation a 1 million dollar Bitcoin is very possible since the dollar wiLL be worthless. 1 million dollar Bitcoin in ten yrs mihht only be a 10,000 dollar Bitcoin at today's dollar value. So ya if the dollar crashes 1 million dollar Bitcoin is very possible.
Great story. Here is why it could rise to $1m:
IMO, the key to guaranteed wealth lies with the exchanges. If I want to guarantee my enduring wealth from the cryptocurrency play, it includes investing on the exchanges. It also has a limited supply. It's the new must-have "status symbol".
contest to steemit de @bakabou159704
While governments are trying to stop the wind with the palm of your hand. But it seems to me that soon they will want to saddle a wave. They will create their own crypt, but exchange it for the same bitcoin.