Bitcoin Forum

Is it too early to be speculating about the price of Bitcoin in light of what happens in the Summer of 2020?

The eyes of the world will be on Japan when it hosts the 2020 Summer Olympics, not to mention the thousands of international atheletes, fans, spectators and tourists who will converge on the land of the Rising Sun. As we all know, Japan is one of the most bitcoin friendly - if not THE most bitcoin friendly - country on the planet right now with it's acceptance of Bitcoin as a legal currency.

Also, for those not yet aware, the next Bitcoin halvening will occur sometime during the Summer of 2020.

Not only will there be some decent exposure just from the fact of bitcoin friendly Japan hosting such a yuge international event
(sure, the Olympics has lost some of its prestige, but still), but there will lso be the inevitable hype surrounding the ?third bitcoin halvening to occur around the same time (albeit price increases have historically occurred weeks to months after the actual halving event date).

Add to that, we could by that time have a consensus solution to the problem of scaling implemented.


To summarize:

Bitcoin-friendly Japan hosting 2020 Summer Olympics + Bitcoin Halving in Summer 2020 +/- possible consensus solution to scaling problem = Perfect Storm? Or just a minor squall?


My over-exhuberent amateur bitcoin speculation intuition vibes are telling me ~$30K price for bitcoin towards the last quarter of 2020 - barring any catastrophic negative event(s) occurring between now and then.


What do you think? Too early to predict? Am I putting to much significance on things? Out of my mind with $30K?

the Olympics is far away and just a one time (granted big) event in the future. but lets not forget all the tourists that are visiting Japan every day of the year.

according to tourism.jp (the Japan's Tourism Research & Consulting Company) the estimated number of international travelers to Japan in April 2017 reached to 2.6 million and according to Wikipedia Japan attracted 24.03 million international tourists in 2016.

all these people are going to a bitcoin friendly country where they will be introduced to this international cryptocurrency which they can carry with themselves on a small piece of paper or on a small USB like hardware wallet or on their cellphones and nobody can search them in the airport and ask "why are you taking $10,000,000 out of the country with you" because they can't say why you wrote some words (seed) on a piece of paper.

I've seen this discussed a few times & 2020 is the time when I think the price will break out violently in an upwards surge. The halving is around that time & like you said when hundreds of thousands of people descend on bitcoin friendly Japan for the Olympics we are likely to see upwards of $25,000 per coin.

2020 is when I plan to properly take stock of things. Much depends on the next few months in terms of chain splittage and governance. If Bitcoin fails to signal that it can evolve in a non hijacked manner then I won't be too impressed.

And I don't think Japan or the Olympics will make much of a difference.

I think it is too early to predict anything about 2020. IMO this is very speculative. A LOT of things can happen between now and then which can totally change the crypto ecosystem.

If miners don't f**k with blockchain and sot splitting it in half and if they activate segwit asap, if ETH doesn't reach to bitcoin by then and many other "ifs" while the competition is sneakily and slowly catching up with us, bitcoin community has it's head under the sands while others are violating it's behind which is above the ground, miners thought the world will stand still and bend to their wills, they never once thought about it out side of the box just for once. if by then every thing goes as plan then $15000 is not a crazy prediction but it is my own prediction.

I think that date will be the breakthrough that bitcoin needs, people will be able to buy almost anything they want with bitcoin in Japan, imagine you are buying something in a store and then someone pays with this currency called bitcoin, a currency you have never heard about, suddenly you  realize there is something better and with that a new user of bitcoin will be born.

Interesting perspective here. I suppose it assumes that bitcoin adoption and use in Japan remains has enthusiastic in 2020 as it is now.

What I think is missing is the catalyst to shift bitcoin awareness from those that are already aware of it to those who are largely not aware of it. Clearly the world will be watching the Olympics, there will be no better place for Bitcoin to get worldwide exposure...the efficiency of the promotion will be at its highest.

How do we make sure that Bitcoin gets space on that stage?

You are overestimating the effect of a "regulated Bitcoin" in Japan in my opinion. Regulation alone will not be the primary motivation for people from all over the world to start using Bitcoin for purchases that would be more efficiently done with traditional forms of payment.


Agreed.

although the bitcoin price right now is dropping, it is probably just a form of illusion. back to the point, if Japan Olympics decides to accept bitcoin and / or even encourage the people to use bitcoin there, i will bet the same about the price of bitcoin and altcoins will be raised far higher together. depends on how Japan prefer after legalising bitcoin.

I agree. Failure to resolve the scaling debate is one of them.
The entire system could just get clogged up and grind to a halt. No point in talking about the Olympics then.

Ordinarily, I'd say you were over exuberant. The halving will likely occur slightly before that summer in my opinion but yes, still likely to have some effect (many already are saying that halving is priced today!).

But relatively, compared to what some 2020 price predictions are out there from "experts", you're way off the mark. Try searching "million dollar Bitcoin" and feel better about yourself ;)

Well, there are some new proposals to get segwit activated if bitcoin is able to once again work as a currency instead of just a store of value then that could be all we need, since the Japanese may start to use bitcoin as a currency and not only as an investment by the time we reach the Olympic games.

It´s too soon to say a price, it depends of how bitcoin fixes its scalability issues, but the halving will boost the price, that´s for sure. It doesn´t mean that the price will take off after the halving, surely this will happen some weeks before.

I don't see any reasoning in Japan hosting the olympics being good for bitcoin, but i guess there is an indirect link. I mean japan has legalized bitcoin this year and that's good news for all of us. If merchants and stores can accept bitcoin on a large scale in Japan and perhaps the government or the store owners themselves is able to subsidize purchases made by bitcoin, it'll be an added incentive for people to use bitcoin while travelling to Japan and therefore increasing bitcoin's popularity.

The real big news in 2020 though is going to be the halving. We have seen how crazy price can go after a halving, and we're still experiencing aftershock of last year's halving in my opinion. It's going to have a direct impact on bitcoin's price, driving it up as it gets harder to harder to obtain.

And no, it's not too early at all. One of the best business strategies is to think ahead of everyone else.

Good call.
Over 250.000 retailers will accept btc starting this summer in japan.
Imagine how it will look like by 2020 when btc has no blackswan event.

2020 will be a great year for bitcoin. Im sure we'll have segwit by then, we'll have fully operational lightning network, and bitmain will most likely be bankrupt. ETH may have collapsed by then, since we will go through another DAO, all this money will come back to BTC.

The halving decreasing the reward will bring the price to 5+ figures.

still limited to speculation and also would have been difficult to predict the price of bitcoin in 2020. As you say I also believe that halving can make bitcoin much better than it is today. An increase in the demand for bitcoin can also make the bitcoin price rise very high.

assuming everything goes well, in the next halving the value would be stable at $10k at least, like we are now perfectly fine at $1k, there is no way we are going lower than that anymore

there is a theory behind which the value will increase tenfold each halving, and i find it reasonable and in line with satoshi's prediction

The biggest advantage i see here is that,while you are travelling abroad you have some restrictions on how much money you can take along with you and if you are good spender having money in bitcoins will be more than handful and since bitcoin is regulated in Japan you wont find much difficulty to exchange that to Yen.

We will get SegWit this year! Look what is happening since a few days! More and more companies agree to UASF BIP148. If Bitmain and it's allies continue to act as they did in the past few days and weeks they will learn a very hard lesson!
In terms of 2020 I don't know if the Olympic games will play such a significant role for Bitcoin's price. We still have 3 years to go and in that time a lot of stuff happens in the crypto space! Imo we could see 5 figures way earlier, even if it's just for a short moment!
However the halving in that years could finally push us above $10k. Again this is all only possible if no other big shit may happen or any plans to stall Bitcoin's progress.

EDIT: I also believe as soon as we move to a price of around 4-5k I'm sure we will see companies like Samsung, Intel entering the space, and producing mining chips. This will help to increase mining decentralisation again, which is definitely needed!

The bitcoin network has to be more efficient for this to happen. A lot of things happen in a country during sporting festivals that are either suppressed or not noticed at all. The adoption rate in Japan has to increase, and bitcoin must be used in buying simple goods and services otherwise nobody will notice. And for this to happen, we need reasonable fees and faster confirmations.

The 2020 halving  will push the price well into 5 digits and more likely 6 digit territory.