Bitcoin Forum

http://www.shamoon.me/post/29347988378/bitcoins-to-break-5-000-btc-in-20-years (http://www.shamoon.me/post/29347988378/bitcoins-to-break-5-000-btc-in-20-years) - based on this post, it seems economically sound to predict that the price will break $5,000 in 20 years. What do you think?

You can't predict how much a currency like bitcoin will be used in the future.


You can only help make it more used :)

5 years  :D

Agreed  :)

+1

Um no but we will have close to 21 million in 2032.  The subsidy won't go to zero BTC for ~130 years.

Unless the developers resolve the blockchain size issues by then, you'll need a hefty hard drive just to run it, and all the noobs will wait weeks just to download a several terabyte-sized blockchain.  Hopefully the open-source aspect will bring more devs who can contribute to help bitcoin evolve into the best cryptocurrency available :)

I just bought a 1.5Tbyte drive for $75..

think its big enuf for the future blockchain??

noob (and probably 99% of users) will be running lite clients.  

Some optimization (multi-peer downloads, removing double validation, and pruning tx) will go a long way towards make the full nodes more efficient HOWEVER over the same period of time (especially under a $5,000 BTC scenario) transaction volume will explode to many magnitudes of current volume so net-net the requirements of full nodes are very likely to INCREASE.

TL/DR If developers make the client download the blockchain 10x faster but the blockchain is now 200x as large although more efficient the demands on a full node will have increased not decreased.

Assuming the block size limit isn't raised, it will take 57 years before the blockchain overflows that drive.

Not going to happen.  I doubt we'll ever see $100 BTCs much less BTCs selling regularly for thousands of USD per BTC.  Not in 20 years, not in 100 years.  Just think about how much bid depth you'd have to have to absorb even 1000BTCs at $5000 without slipping, say, 10%.  At just $100/BTC you'd have to have somebody with a single $100,000 bid at 100$/BTC not get any slippage.

The price might make another go at the previous all time high, but just like the pump and dump that induced that high last time, it won't hold there but momentarily because there simply is not, and probably will never be, the necessary depth to keep the price up.  I'm confident we haven't seen the last of single digits, and we'll probably still be seeing single digits years from now.

That is the silliest reason ever.  The nominal units don't matter market depth is market depth.  Slippage of pennies on a $100 coin is negligible.  What would matter if say the accumulated orders from $100.00 to $100.10 (0.1% slippage).

Are you saying $100 BTC w/ 21 million coins isn't possible but somehow $10 BTC w/ 210 million coins would be possible?

Damn.. Better buy a bigger hard drive!! ;)

I doubt this assumption is accurate. With projected Bitcoin growth, we'd see closer to a drive that big every seven blocks in 57 years.

Calculations:

In 57 years Bitcoin will be the only form of currency on Earth. The population of Earth is projected to be nine billion. The average person performs 100 transactions a month. That is around 0.0231 transactions per person per block. In total, that is 208 million transactions per block. The average transaction size is around 1 KB. Therefore, there will be 208 GB on average per block in 57 years.

There is no way most transactions will be hitting the block chain 57 years from now. It probably won't even be 1%.

Yes, but as you clearly demonstrated, if you reject that assumption you have to make even more assumptions that have no reliable basis and you end up with mere speculation.

It won't be close to 1% in just a decade.

Already even with virtually free blockchain tx, Seals has done about 12000 blockchain transactions in a year, but we do almost 2000 multi-way balance updates each day.

Short answer is, yes, it's possible. But it could also be $0/btc in 20yrs. That's part of why this is all so interesting. That article uses some pretty simple-minded logic to derive $/BTC in the future based on the assumption that bitcoin actually becomes a major currency in everyday use for a lot of people. I think it's somewhat difficult to make a case for that realistically happening in 20yrs, given geopolitical dynamics, but who knows.

To me, the easier case to make is simply that bitcoin will increasingly be seen as a better substitute for gold, and people who like to hold gold will also start to hold bitcoin, and will eventually start to hold bitcoin instead of gold (this is discussed here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=100065.0 ). If 1% of gold were swapped for BTC, that yields about $4000/BTC. If we're gonna get uber-speculative, I think that's one of the easier cases to make that supports bitcoin becoming super valuable.

The assumptions I made were mostly lower bounds. A block is probably going to be larger than 1 TB on average in 57 years, once considering coin splitting, larger transaction sizes, and whatever other stuff gets stored onto the blockchain. Buying a 1.5 TB disk isn't going to store two blocks in the future blockchain.

Luckily, Moore's Law tells us we'll have hard disks 200 ZB (zettabytes) in size by then.

Emphasis added.  That's quite optimistic.  Most of my assets (other than my house) are currently in bitcoin or related businesses, but even I have a hard time accepting "only currency on earth" in only 57 years as a lower bound.

It's likely Bitcoin will also be the only currency on the Moon, and it's quite possible (although not certain) it will also be on Mars. Unless Bitcoin somehow fails, I think it's 99.9% certain that Bitcoin will control all but some niches of the world's currency usage in 57 years.

I think this image will be closer. It's the WWW adoption rate in terms of users.
https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRIJiAKy2xk05Rl2wpfd8ubV77kCqcJgjAq9EOH76bL8VEsxmJAiw

You have it in reverse. Within 57 months bitcoin will be the only currency on mars. Earth will take longer to adopt it due to the lower robot/human ratio.

The latency between Earth and Mars would make transactions take forever to confirm on Mars, assuming Earth is where the mining is located. If a solution to this isn't found, then it's entirely possible that Marscoin would develop on Mars instead of Bitcoin.

The latency between the Moon and Earth is small enough that a few centralized Earth-Moon transit nodes is sufficient for rapid communication. Mining is even possible on the Moon if only one communication is made.

Everyone on Mars would just use MarsBankAlpha and MarsBankBeta who would occasionally send a Bitcoin transaction to the Earth blockchain to rebalance. The Earth banks will do the same thing.

It might break $5,000 in 20 years, but the scalability issues must be tackled first.

Also, USD might tank enough that $5000 isn't exactly a lot of money in 20 years.

But the thing is, as of now bitcoins are only useful as a very risky (but potentially high-reward) speculative investment and a payment method for small-scale illegal markets.

In 20 years that might be different. Actually, even the end-user level drug markets are big enough worldwide to support a much higher price than BTC's value today. Of course in F2F transactions cash is much easier, but mail order with an escrow service is something that wasn't really available to drug users before Bitcoin.

Reading this thread one might be tempted to believe that the future can be predicted, which it cannot.

Of course the future can be predicted. The sun will rise tomorrow where I live. There will be a solar eclipse on April 8, 2024 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_April_8,_2024).

Unfortunately, predictions for Bitcoin's future are less obvious and certain.

Holly crap, he's right. dree12 can control the cosmos!!   :D
Is there a wiki page showing future prices?  :-[

I dont' think Moore's law works on Hard drives, but it may be true for Solid State Drives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kryder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kryder)

No, but Kryder's Law shows Moore's law is a reasonable lower bound.

didnt they just recently add a marker to the blockchain at 158333 or something like that so it DL's faster.   i've noticed the blockchain downloads a lot faster than it used to from a fresh install of the client.   plus years from now HDD and bandwidth will be better than what it is now....

This thread is dumb. In 20 years the dollar will likely be inflated into oblivion that we are no longer using the current dollars we use today.

One thing we can safely assume is that the dollar won't be worth $5000 in 20 years.

Impossible to know. All life could be extinct on this planet in 20 years.

I'll 1 up you.

The answer is yes. Bitcoins CAN break $5,000 in 20 years.

Well if it keeps doubling every year we will get there in 8-9 years.

However for this to happen the big problems have to be solved:
1. Paying with and receiving BTC needs to be dirt cheap and simple.
2. The BTC network has to be able to take the growth without fees rising much.

Multiple bitcoin card projects are in the works so #1 will likely be covered in a year or sooner with costs falling after that and options multiplying.

#2 is harder but also less critical. We probably have ~4 years before it will impair growth. Swarm algorithms should be under development or developed if we get that far by then.

Keep in mind that BTC can grow in many ways:
 - Amount of people.
 - What they use it for.
 - The amounts they use it for.

This means the fast growth phase could be sustained for much longer than that of say Facebook.

the only thing that can prevent BTC from getting to 5000 is the competition o new and improved blockchains

Yes, but $5000 will only be enough to buy a burger and a beer.

Nice.  Ok how about can bitcoin break 1 oz of gold in 20 years?

Martian BotCoin (MBC) is already doing quite well in its earthbound prelaunch phase: http://galaxies.mygamesonline.org/digitalisassets.html

-MarkM-

Yes.

If someone figures out how to transmute other (cheaper) elements into gold, then it certainly could :-)

These exist and have for a long time. They are not economically feasible.

Since there is about .6oz of gold above ground for every person on Earth, and far far less bitcoin then I think it is possible if the people of the world adopt it as a currency.

Somehow I think by the time the world embraced a common currency it will be the next thing after bitcoin. After all, us normal people have bitcoin, that just won't do.

I agree, people used to ask me in person "Do you think someday Bitcoin will be worth * A THOUSAND * dollars. Just like that, they say "a thousand" like it's a lot of money. I used to say yes and blah blah, and talk to them about fiat currency and everything.

Now I've just moved beyond that and said, "Listen, I don't think it will be "worth" USD because someday USD aren't going to exist anymore. We've hit an untenable course with fiat money. Those of us now using Bitcoin and GLBSE no longer have to pay taxes, so we don't. That means the only people participating in fiat are eventually going to be the ones benefiting from the system, and those people are a net drain on fiat. Fiat is untenable, therefore it cannot continue.

Will Bitcoin ever be "taxed"? Sure, maybe, there's a number of ways this could be done, by imposing fees on operating nodes, forced transaction fees, and etc. None of them are easy to implement, but the governments of the world have force behind them. The problem is, they will realize this too late and by accepting Bitcoin for taxes, we've won.

We shouldn't be asking when a Bitcoin will be worth X USD, we should be asking when a USD will no longer be able to purchase Bitcoin.

Gold is a better competitor to Bitcoin, as in my opinion many western currencies will vanish in a global crash soon.

My prediction is that Bitcoins doubles his value to gold every year (If technology resists, what is unsure).

Not in our lifetimes.  The USD may be inflated all to hell where $1USD has the purchasing power of less than a penny and the banknotes are $500 USD, $5,000 USD, $10,000 USD, and $50,000 USD but the USD will outlive all of us.

Depends on how much is left in our lifetimes. I hope to live for 80 more years yet!

I think the dollar (or "new dollar") will be around in 80 years so maybe I am a pessimist.

No.

I doubt it will even be around in 20 years (save for a few die hard enthusiasts, perhaps), honestly.

Will the US Dollar even exist in 20 years?

Do you think that's air you're breathing?

Don't underestimate the possibility for dollars to be replaced with Ameros (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_currency_union)  ;D

Yes.

 Even the war-torn wasteland, somalia, (which has no government or central bank) still uses the pre-war somali shilling. I highly  doubt the Usd is going anwhere, particularly in 20 years.

the key to their success?

 :D

In 2032, there will be ~20 million coins. At $5,000USD a coin, that's about 100 Billion USD.

Now 100 Billion spread out among 1,000 miners is quite a lot of money for those select few! But it's not really feasible that it will be worth that much if only a few people own it.
100 Billion spread out among 100,000? 1,000,000? 10,000,000? Now we're getting there.

I say it depends on how many people adopt BTC in those 20 years. When we have millions of miners, the difficulty is in the billions, mining a full BTC could take months, and everyone's bank accounts and phones are wirelessly paying for things in Satoshis rather than dollars, it could be worth 5,000 or even more.

No bank = no money flooding

We might not be so lucky.

The original question is equivalent to "Will Bitcoin's market cap reach 100 billion within 20 years?" I think yes.

Just before Pirate's defaulting, I was anticipating the article : "Bitcoin now priced higher than Facebook".
At that time BTC was above 15 and FB @ 19 on the way down. It might still happen though, either way!

No, bitcoin's market cap would have to exceed about $41 Billion (FB's current market cap) for it to be even remotely accurate to say "bitcoin is priced higher than Facebook". The price per trading-unit is not relevant in a vacuum. So that equates to about $1952/BTC (using the full 21,000,000 coin issuance).

"Bitcoin priced higher than FB"; I know, you are absolutely  right.
Nevertheless a catchy headline that would suggest that Bitcoin makes better sense than investing in the internet giant. It is'nt fair either to compare the price of a currency/commodity to the value of a stock.

It depends how much will other electronic currencies improve meanwhile. There's already solid competition in namecoins, litecoins etc. In future I predict there'll be a lot of competing electronic currencies and bitcoin might still be ahead of others regarding general adoption, features, infrastructure etc. but I wouldn't definitely bet on that :D
It will go way beyond what Friedrich Hayek described in his "The Denationalization of Money" paper for sure ;D

By reading those numbers I remember how ridicolously small bitcoin's current userbase and value really is. If even facebook, a simple webservice to exchange gossip, can reach a market value of $41 Billion and that within 3/4/5? years, then a bitcoin should absolutely be worth more than 5000$ in 20 years. I mean it's a new paradigm of currency. How can it be worth less than "a simple webservice to exchange gossip"?

I think everybody forgets one little detail in this train of thought - the dollar will be long gone by that time! :)
Or you seriously believe Chinese will keep buying US debt for another 20 years...  ;D

Very valid point

Not trying to be Johnny RainCloud but with so little, virtually not much adoption of btc; what makes you think it'll go anywhere near $100; let alone $5000? Just wondering ... what is the basis of this speculation?

look at it this way: in three years, btc went from the initial creation to where we are now. what, then, does 20 years hold? personally, i haven't the foggiest. :D

I would be pretty surprised if China wasn't still buying US debt in 2032.  What the hell else are they going to do with their dollars?

Oh really? Where's the equivalent of MtGox for litecoins? And namecoins aren't a currency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias

What the hell else are they going to do with their dollars?

Invest in Africa/Asia/South America, Stockpile natural ressources (oil, precious metals, rare earth metals, ...). They already started doing so
And do you think the trade imbalance will stay like that for 20 years ?

Then what are they ? Can you give me some ?  ;D

There are several exchanges for litecoins. None is so big as MtGox in bitcoin world which is actually better for the whole economy not to be dependent so much on one exchange and price manipulation movements there. Regarding namecoins, bitcoins can also be considered as a commodity, not a currency, in digital world it really doesn't matter. BTW, you can add Linden dollars and Liberty Reserve to the list and more are coming as we speak ;) I wish bitcoin all the best (I own a bunch of them and its a intrepid pioneer in this field) but bitcoin will not be the only electronic currency in the future and it's quite probable that it won't be the biggest one either. There's still long way ahead and who knows what the future holds  8)

what dollars?

there hasn't been a "dollar" since 1935

all they hold are electronic notations representing that they are owed federal reserve notes

There are no bitcoins either.  What's your point?

And for the record, there are dollars.  I've got one in my wallet that was minted in 2010.

If bitcoin manages to survive 20 years, it won't be worth $5,000...it will be more like $100,000.  If it survives another 5 years, it should easily top $5,000.

"the United States dollar was defined as a unit of weight equaling 371 4/16th grains (24.057 grams) of pure silver"

that thing in your pocket is a debt instrument

I will attempt to stop being obtuse.  I find it vanishingly unlikely that the United States federal reserve note will exist in 20 years, certainly not as a world reserve currency.  What will China do with the value owed them?  Choke on it or go to war most likely.

No, I promise you that the ounce of silver in my wallet stamped "One Dollar" by the U.S. Mint is not in any way, shape or form a debt instrument.  It is really a dollar.

You are being pedantic about dollars.  In everyday usage, the word "dollar" is very well understood, whether it be a silver eagle, a paper FRN, an entry in your bank's computer, or a treasury bond/bill/note.  For what it's worth, I totally agree that most dollars are not really dollars.  That doesn't change anything.

I would be amazed if the dollar doesn't still exist in 20 years.  As fucked up as our financial and economic systems are, it turns out that pretty much the whole rest of the world is even more fucked up.  China thinks so too.  They keep buying our debt because it is the best place to park their export earnings.  If they didn't think so, they would FOREX their USD away as they came in.

Aha, very well, your SAE is actually a bit more than a dollar, and I will admit to being pedantic.

I am interested to know how you think the current debt load is going to be repaid?

Painfully obvious inflation mostly, obscured slightly by bogus statistics.  The usual.  Remember that the debt in question is denominated in a currency that we can print at will (and have!).  The repayment amount isn't a fixed value, but a fixed quantity.

Who would buy or hold a debt like that?  Turns out that everyone does, because the alternatives are mostly worse.  That may change in the next 20 years, maybe it will even be Bitcoin that brings the system down.  But those are both long shots.

YoY their US treasuries holding was down 10% as of June 2012

http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/mfh.txt (http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/mfh.txt)

The alternatives are mostly worse...for now.

I see other world powers losing patience with the fed's monopoly on, and inevitable devaluation of their holdings.  Being "the best looking horse at the glue factory" is no way to run a world reserve currency.  Already China, India, Russia and others are making noises about some "basket of commodities" system.  Once the rush to get out begins I just don't see how the dollar survives.

This is curious; we seem to largely agree on the facts of the matter but have come to diametrically opposed conclusions.

Except that being the world's reserve currency isn't a gift, it is a burden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma).  A huge fucking burden.  The price that the USA has paid over the last 40 or 50 years to support, build and rebuild the world is mind boggling.

Look guys, the only way bitcoin won't one day (soon) hit a market cap of $100 billion ($5000/ea), is if it completely fails. I can't see a middle of the road option here. But then, if it does fail, would that be so bad? I am fairly confident bitcoin will succeed --- I am unquestionably confident that digital, peer-to-peer currency will succeed. And who better to find the one, true "bitcoin perfected" if satoshi's bitcoin fails than the original bitcoin community? What community on earth knows more about peer to peer technology applied to currency than we do? If we must jump ship on bitcoin because of something catastrophic, who could better locate a superior vessel than we, the originals?

Only in flawed economic thinking is it a burden. The Triffin dilemma is based on one of the greatest misconceptions in modern-day economics: "a trade deficit is bad".

The USA has been a hungry importer, receiving a huge influx of useful goods, lasting commodities, and safe securities in exchange for its depreciating, produced-on-demand USD, all because it owns the world's reserve currency.

The real question is: Would there be $ in 20 years? :)

further, all oil transactions occurring in USD is a HUGE boon to the US banking industry

Agree. De Gaulle was expressing it in 1965, at the time France was exchanging most of his dollars for gold

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j58gikUjyIo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j58gikUjyIo)

There is no such thing as a trade deficit, not really.  In the long run, there is always balance.  As the dollars flowed out, our capital, our saved production, our means of future production, flowed out with them.  We didn't rebuild Europe and Asia after the war with tricky accounting, we poured out our sweat and blood, because no one else would.

In a hundred years, or two hundred, future historians will note the last several decades as the era when the United States impoverished itself to catapult the rest of the world into the modern age.


I see this one a lot.  Sadly, it is really silly.  The unit of account for oil sales is meaningless.  In what way do you imagine that it helps the banks?  Do you think that oil purchasers are able to buy dollars through FOREX when they want to buy oil, but oil producers are unable to sell them when they want to buy something else?

Ha!  I love hearing his speeches.  He talks so slow that I can almost keep up despite knowing virtually no french.

He was mostly right, too.  There really was no way that the USA could both provide dollars in the quantity the world needed and redeem them for gold.  There simply isn't enough gold to go around.  That is the di part of Triffin's Dilemma.  And the resolution of that problem led us directly into the bizarre situation we are in now.

When Nixon closed the gold window, that rest of the world had the chance to get off this crazy ride.  For the most part, they chose to stay.  And they continue to stay because staying is better than leaving.  Creating a better system is a long, difficult road, paved with mistakes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro) and uncertainty.

I think it would be absolutely awesome if bitcoin could step up as the global reserve currency.  It would fit the bill perfectly, even better than gold.

Yep, worth going to war (iraq) over keeping it that way as well.

Simple.  Inflation. 

The dollar has lost 99% of it's value over the last 80 years.  It will lose that much over the next 80.  $15T is only $150M in real terms if the dollar devalues 99% over the next 80 years.

That was my point, and kjj agrees.  He just somehow sees the USD surviving it.

Why would the next 80 years be any different?  I mean it isn't like this has snuck up on anyone.  The purchasing power of one $1 USD has slowly been eroded for decade after decade after decade.  It isn't like the US is throwing a curve ball at the last minute.  Do you honestly think there is any central bank that doesn't know that $1 USD will buy ~30% to 40% less in a decade?  Do you think any central banker didn't know that a decade ago, two decades ago, eight decades ago?  I mean you don't need to be an economist to figure that out you just need to be able to read a graph.

30 year bond rates tend to be above the rate of inflation so bondholders don't really lose (the naive ones just make less than they think).  They get more dollars but the dollars are worth less (but not worthless).  Net-net they break even.  It is a store of value in a weird kinda way.

The debt is less important than the deficit.  Our current year deficits are simply unsustainable but that is a lot easier to solve.  Paying down the debt is tough but we never will.  At one time a billion was a lot of money.  Did we pay down our billion dollar debt (circa 1918).  No we just let inflation solve it over the next century.

This is a very American-centric view, and does little to quash the stereotypes surrounding American self-centric thinking.

As USD became the reserve currency, other countries scrambled to provide non-depreciating assets. As USD depreciated and countries acquired more USD to compensate, more commodities and sound securities were provided. The USA has been feeding off this, and "exploitation of the globe" is without a doubt a crucial reason the USA remains the world's largest economy amidst development of harder-working, stronger-producing, and less-consuming markets in Asia and Latin America, and eventually Africa.

The hilarious part is that you'll find that what I'm saying is very unpopular in the US.  But I guess, haters gotta hate...  I'm pretty sure I know how history will understand this era when personal jealousy is no longer an issue.


You are going to have to explain this part to me, I can make no sense of it.  In particular:

What non-depreciating assets?
Who are they being provided to?
If dollars are so bad, why exactly are they gathering more of them instead of getting rid of them?
Again, what was being provided?  By who?  And to whom?
How has the US been feeding off of whatever you are talking about?
Do you mean exploit in the good sense, or the bad sense?

I don't think this can be the case. Not with the current state of things. The only way this would be possible is if you will be wiping your ass with 20 dollar bills because they will have no value left...

I am pretty sure that ,to the contrary, history will reflect that, post WWII, American Corporate interests dealt themselves the best hand ever and used American military power to maintain colonial hegemony over much of the globe, placing and supporting many well documented brutal dictatorships in the process.

But hey, tell yourself whatever happy stories make you sleep better.  It also helps to repeat "they hate us for our freedoms, they hate us for our freedoms" over and over

Not true. The dollar (and other currencies) will still hold similar value. The market caps are so far out of line at the moment that an increase to 5000/btc would do little to the value of the national currencies.

They call it ..bringing Democracy  ,  i am suprised that Jung Americans still, fall for that BS.

Like , kjj  damn..wake up..why u think every body hate USA.

H

well, we (american's that is) DO tend to be arrogant snobbish loudmouths with entitlements issues when we travle abroad and tend ot think we're the best, even though it's easily demonstrable we're not...

anyone know any islands for sale?