Bitcoin Forum

Assuming that BTC is going to become world currency, it wil have to get value of some part at least of World Econymy.

Example math:
Data:
[WE] = 61*10^12 USD World Economy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_economy
[BTCN] = ~21*10^6 BTC available

Assumptions:
[P] = 10% - part of World Economy that some of us suspect BTC will be used for

( [P] * [WE] ) / [BTCN]   =   [USD/BTC RATIO]

( 10% * 61*10^12 ) / 21*10^6 = ~6,1*10^6

With current growth speed doubling BTC value each year it will get this level in about twenty years.

So Do you think that we can get stable increase of BTC value and get 10% of economy in twenty years (~2032)
Or we will get some boom and get there much faster?

If bitcoin will be still there they will increase for sure value in next years, but I don't think it will reach more than 0,01% of the world economy in next 20years putting a more realistic 10.000$/BTC value.
How I get that number? The 90% of the World economy is from industrial and financial groups,military and gov exepenses that is really unlikely that switch to bitcoins. The remaining 10% is made by "normal" people.  Nowaday there are about 1 Million BTC users out of 7billion with half of that 7billion living in the third world with a salary below 2$, so 1 user over 3500ppl,  even if we increase by 10 the number of users and we can use BTC for 5% of our expenses (it's really a high value, near 3050$ of GDP per capita in bitcoin economy) we are at about 0.05%.
To obtain your 10% even if bitcoin will be used by 100 milion of ppl they have to spend 61.000$ p.c. in bitcoin economy: really unlike to be possible in a 20 year future.

SO how would you guess what would be avarage speed of BTC value increase in next 20 yoears? 40%/year?

And my question is, will it be more or less linear, or will it have some more fancy curve?

40 years is really too far away to made a guess. Even 20 is a long time in new branch of economy like crypthocurrency. But as long as there will be 1 or at least 2 levels of market the average velocity of circulation will be really low. You have to build a system in which goods can be bought and sold with bitcoin both for the customers and the shopkeeper. At the moment only selfmade products will be sold that way.
At the moment the velocity is near 2,5-3 with trading that make a velocity of 2 alone, and a lot of bitcoin stuck in few people wallets. The curve will be probably quite linear but with a low gradient (in the 0,01-0,1) for a couple of years than if bitcoin continue to be used we can see a slightly increase in the slope with a total velocity near 5-6 in 10-15 years but non much more.

I think Price will Boom in 3-10 years...

As the years past and more and more people are exposed to all the alternative currencies, Bitcoin will come out the #1 alternative currency.  At first their was only a handful of people into bitcoin... slow and steady growth which hit critical mass and BOOM 30$ a coin. Now we are seeing slow and steady growth again, hitting critical mass this time will led to a BOOM we're bitcoin is well known 8/10 people know about it 1/100 use it. Once we get their it will be steady growth again until bitcoin  hits critical mass again and finally fully takes over the world  ;)

I think I read of a HSBC analyser saying they expect a boom in virtual currency(s) in the next ~5 years.

I think BTC price will be ~$20 before the end of 2013

http://afr.com/p/technology/banks_get_ready_for_virtual_cash_I7LI6KZ7wx9TXNwUKWuc9I
For anyone else that was wondering.

Good read, thanks. 3-5 years if banks are going to open up, I think that is a good time frame.

Could it be bad that banks open up to bitcoins? I feel it would be more regulated, and I feel the price increase/decrease will change depending on what the banks want to do. Could be a bad thing too.

I think the same  :-\
Is good that bitcoin has a fixed ratio inflaction and that a bank can't control the wast amount of bitcoin, but is easy (or at least quite easy) for a bank to take over the network (investing 10-20Milion of $ in ASIC for a medium bank is not a big problem)

Bitcoin already went boom a year ago and again just a month ago, and yet here we are.

Anyway, the number of bitcoins doesn't have to be matched to the world's GDP. For example, the amount of dollars in circulation is less than the U.S. GDP.

However, if Bitcoin completely replaced the dollar today, then 1 BTC would be valued at $1 million ($10 trillion dollars in the world / 10 million BTC). Let's shoot for 10% of that!

I think the first target within the next 2-5 years is to reach the market cap of some large company like facebook or paypal/ebay. (Market Cap of Ebay/Paypal is about 50,000 Million USD, there are 21 Million BTC --> About 2,400 USD per BTC). I think Bitcoin at least provides the same kind of usefulness as paypal or facebook, so it should be valued as such. This also corresponds with the price targets, someone, who IMO does *reasonable* analysis, posted here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=111890.msg1240069#msg1240069. Please note, that I DO disagree with the timeframe.

You say you disagree with the timeframe. How many years are you thinking it will take to reach such heights?

I disagree with enky's timeframe (of about 10 years). I think it will be reached within 2-5 (biased towards 5). But maybe it's also just wishful thinking ;)

I was also thinking along those lines. The reason being is because of the age of Bitcoin at that time being almost 10 years old which is usually about the time when new technology advancements tend to take off like crazy. I also think that since the reward will be halving down to 12.5 would ultimately make acquiring bitcoins a lot tougher. Imagine the difficulty and therefore network security in 4 years. Very interesting to think about.

If we take a pessimistic approach, Bitcoin could see an acceptance curve of more than 20 years. In respect of inventions throughout the centuries, there seems to be a common wavelike acceptance of new inventions. It is not uncommon that an invention looks promising, is disregarded by the masses or tossed in the wastebin (or dark drawer) by the inventor, only to pop up again after 5-15 years when the time became ripe. Every idea has its own time; every invention needs to ride the right wave.

If Bitcoin is to take this well known ride, we may have to deal with a long period of very low acceptance/usage of Bitcoin, perhaps even for 10 years or so, only to pick up steam when 'the wave' is right. Frankly, I think the 'wave' will be there a lot sooner due to (1) open mismanagement of fiat currency, (2) rising awareness amongst the people and (3) explosion of mobile internet/smartphones in developing countries.

Having said this, it seems prudent to expect a relatively stable or even dormant period for BTC for another 5 years.
For price projection, I tend to compare total global money supply (approx USD60-70 trillion) versus the total amount of BTC (21 mio). A market cap in the long term of 0,1% for BTC seems reasonable, which aligns with other projections of $900-3.000USD/BTC.

Very well said :)

I am totally ok with bitcoin in the shadows for 5 or so years to come. I have set goals and I am giving myself 4 years to accomplish them. I am very excited for what the future has in store for us "bitcoiners" in the future. I can't find any friends or acquaintances in my real life who believe in this idea as strongly as I do. I'm glad there are at least some others out there that share same views. I missed out on things like Microsoft and Apple mainly because of my age/immaturity. I do not intend to miss out on the "biggest invention since the internet". 8)

I too can see only slow and steady rise in bitcoin market cap on a logarithmic scale for at least another three years and maybe even up to or over five years.  As adoption starts to increase more rapidly after that time scale that's a vital time for bitcoin as its when the major governments may start clamping down on bitcoin exchanges.  Bitcoin is still very young, immature and because of its such minor market capitalisation plus use on global scale is the reason its being left alone by the US and EU governments.  China has already made it illigal to purchase real world goods with virtual currency's iirc.  The legal implications behind virtual currency's is the reason we have no 'Google coins' or that Facebook hasn't really developed 'Facebook credits' yet.  Once bitcoin market cap approaches $1Billion the major world governments really start looking at bitcoin and may try to stop it through banning exchanges.  With one major thing I can see happening is the governments forcing a hard fork of the blockchain if they don't try to kill it completely.

There seems to be some consensus around 5 years which is also what I've been predicting on other threads, by 2017 I think we will see very wide spread awareness of bitcoins & hence a critical mass for adoption by both people & businesses, this will happen in America first imo, by then I would expect to see a price of over $60 per coin which would give a $1 B market cap, but there is going to be a lot of controversy before we get there so plenty of buying opportunities. I also see Litecoin with 4 times as many coins & faster transactions, ideal for Starbucks type TX getting over $1 before then & plenty growth potential too also as a Bitcoin backup currency when the heat gets on to BTC.