Thank you for the insight. However, it can have fantastic long-term potential and still be in a bubble. Look at the stock price of Amazon in 1997. Then compare 2002, and then look at now.

Bubble doesn't mean that the current valuation is out of line with the long-term potential, it means that it's out of line with the intermediate term potential.

In finance there is a concept called 'Time Value of Money'. Everyone has an intuitive understanding of this. You would rather have one dollar now than the same dollar one year from now. For one year from now to be better, you need some increased amount (interest or rate of return) to choose receiving it one year from now instead.

For terms of valuation, you decide the appropriate rate of return, and then discount forward expected return to find out the current valuation.

With any expected return greater than 10-15% (I think our expected return for bitcoin is much higher than that, given that it can fluctuate that much every few days this year), the present value of future expectations past 10-15 years starts to approach zero. In effect current valuations are usually driven by expectations in the next 10 years, for all but the most stable of companies. When this time horizon is pushed out (how many years to reach 100% ROI?) too far, that is when it starts looking like a bubble.

So what is your time horizon for bitcoin to be worth trillions? Now if you don't really know because you can't see a clear path between here and there, that's okay but it implies bubble valuation at present until the path becomes clear.

TLDR: it can have great long-term prospects and still be a bubble. I think it currently is.

(full disclosure: I'm invested in bitcoin, and I bought more yesterday.)