Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin Foundation’s Llew Claasen Says Bitcoin Will Hit $40,000, 90% Of Altcoins Will Fail.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-foundations-llew-claasen-says-bitcoin-will-hit-40000-90-of-altcoins-will-fail

Hmm! it is a bitter prediction after the dip (losses) or a better prediction which need to ponder?
For me, seems Llew Claseen needs a quick revenue after a huge losses.

I think BTC to hit $40K by end of 2018 is beyond reach. The current status of BTC seems it just hover below $20K. Llew CLaseen just made a wild prediction to encourage investors to place money on BTC after a huge lose.

Given the volatility on bitcoin, its past and its room for growth. $40,000 this year is small. But i'll be happy and contented with that price though.

I think getting to $40K is really achievable considering some things and since we have a lot of FUD out of the way and Bitcoin is steadily rising from $5K to $10K in a matter of weeks, I don't see the prediction to be wild at all.

It's definitely a reasonable prediction and could easily happen. SegWit adoption will make the fees lower, Lightning network coming to life will make more services, local shops, ATMs accept it. so the growth will be huge and in the same time, this will make most of alts obsolete.

it seems like we are at that time of year again when the rise has started and bitcoin is showing all signs of a rally so everyone is making predictions about how big it will get by some arbitrary time!

bitcoin is on the rise and the speed of this rise and as a result the price by the end of 2018 is completely unpredictable. for example the thing above poster said about lightning network can speed up the rise by a lot but it needs to start being adopted by some major merchant/service first.

for example imagine Amazon starting to accept bitcoin payments through LN. it will possibly push price to $100k!

Discard the volatility. If the market has taught us on thing throughout the years, then it's the fact that volatility is meaningless for the longer term price development. Bitcoin's market has been one massive rollercoaster, and people keep complaining about the volatility being an obstacle for the price, like seriously, are you guys blind or what? LOOK at the charts if you don't believe it. Other than that, with how thin the market is, and with how much thinner the market will get in the forthcoming months/years, it's just a matter of time before we smash through +$100,000 levels. I don't even focus on anything less than that, neither should anyone here do if they are in for the long term.

I would've considered this a conservative estimate last year, but considering how the massive bull run corrected itself and how we're only just beginning to stabilize, I wouldn't count on it. Bitcoin's issues were on full display, and I assume a lot of newcomers lost money by buying during the bull run; these people are unlikely to enter the market again and/or top up their wallets. That means the room for growth of adoption would be slimmer than it was last year, making a sustained bull run more difficult.

I'm sure Bitcoin will be fine, but I believe it will take a spark to get it growing the way it did again. That spark may end up being the Lightning Network, if it does as well as theorized.


Well about 95% of alts are shitcoins with no real roadmap, so I wouldn't be surprised. It doesn't really matter though, because new shitcoins will just take their place; they're quite in demand for pump and dump groups after all.

some prediction is 50k but i dont know maybe if bitcoin is increase in any amount i will be so happy because i earn money.

Well we all know that any amount is possible to reach by Bitcoin, but we can't really say how much it can take in a specific day or year. I agree with him that majority of those existing alternative cryptocurrency will fail soon because they really don't have any unique usage and most are just shitcoins, and if that happens money will pour in those coins that will survive mostly in Bitcoin so it is possible that it can hit $40000 or even more. So if that happens before this year ends, maybe his predictions are right. But the problem here is even those shitcoins will not survive, more new coins will come as long as there are people who are willing to invest.

I think this would be posible that bitcoin will reach to 40,000$ before the end of this year 2018 just like last year we did not realy expect that bitcoin could reach in 19k and almost 20k before he fall down again and reach to 7k usd in january this year. Now this is the good time to buy more bitcoin and hold.

That price prediction is very popular among many investors and Llew Claasen did not predict anything new,maybe he just read what Michael Novogratz said a few months ago that Bitcoin could 'easily' reach $40,000 by the end of 2018 (https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/27/bitcoin-could-easily-reach-40000-by-the-end-of-2018-novogratz.html)

If you just think about it and if all the facts are taken into account then 40 000$ is not something hard to reach.Last year show how nothing is impossible,from 1000$ to 20 000$ was amazing progress.So if todays price is go up just 4 times, 40 000$ will be realized.

What definitely should not be forgotten is a correction that will most likely follow next ATH, and it can be 50% more or less.

when you buy more bitcoins and lots of stocks and they do not sell it I think that just hold and just buy nothing to sell their bitcoin because much bitcoin support and they can make more bitcoin and hold

I think It is certainly possible that bitcoin will hit 40k by the end of 2018. If we see what happened last year, bitcoin rose under 1k to around 20k. At present, the price has crossed 10k and to make 4x from here is definitely possible.

It still have a possibility, but saying 90% of altcoins will fail is not a good prediction.
what makes him said that ? if this prediction not based on some fact, it is only speculations.

Well if you want facts, here are some you might find interesting:

(at the time of writing)

1) There are 1,545 coins/tokens listed on coinmarketcap.com
2) The cryptocurrency market cap is currently at $489,379,690,258
3) The top 100 coins/tokens alone (6.47%) account for $469,263,573,711 (95.8%) of the total cryptocurrency market cap

I know this doesn't mean that the bottom 93.53% are failing, but it's no secret that they're far behind. A large majority of them could fail and no one would notice. His prediction may be overly harsh, but I'd say it's not too unlikely.

I assume that you are referring to the full mempool when you talk about Bitcoin´s issues?

In my opinion the full mempool would have never happened if nefarious actors would have never
started spamming the blockchain. The current blocksize actually is high enough for the genuine demand
for BTC transactions at the moment and only appears to be too low during periods of spam attacks.

I agree with Claseen that 90% of altcoins are going to fail. That's just the fact at the moment. A lot of alts are hyped up for no apparent reason and just because investors want another way of putting away their money and speculating on something.

The $40k prediction probably won't come true, however.

Prices are going up, but the market's definitely not as bullish compared to last year. The maximum we're going to see is most likely in the $20k-30k region, and that's going to be very optimistic from even a long term bull.

Yes I was.

There's no solid evidence of a spam attack, but I don't discount the possibility. Still, wouldn't being vulnerable to spam attacks be aan issue in itself? Spam attack or not, the network being clogged means we lose either way -- Bitcoin can't handle high demand and/or its network can be brought down by a few bad eggs. It's a weakness that shows Bitcoin isn't ready for primetime.

Interesting viewpoint, I never really considered that being vulnerable to spam attacks is an issue in
itself. I´m just speculating, but maybe it will become increasingly expensive to spam
the network when the Bitcoin price reaches new highs (after all fees are calculated in BTC and
the people with nefarious intentions are likely not having huge amounts of BTC, but rather huge
amounts of fiat).

Regarding evidence for spam attacks I could provide you with a few links:
Some analysis done by French developer LaurentMT (https://bravenewcoin.com/news/bitcoin-spam-attack-stressed-network-for-at-least-18-months-claims-software-developer/)
Some analysis done by me (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178336.msg29194510#msg29194510)

Of course none of this is definite proof of spam attacks, but some blocks contain
a ton of transactions that are highly unlikely to come from legitimate Bitcoin usage.
Besides, some entities were obviously highly incentivized to try to destroy the trust in Bitcoin
(e.g. Bitcoin Cash supporters, some governments, Ethereum supporters, who were waiting for the
"flippening").

That's true. One of the purposes of miner fees is to discourage spammers from spamming the network with transactions after all. You have to consider though, for this particular case, the supposed spammers spammed Bitcoin at its peak, which is $19,000+. It's sitting just below $11,000 now, so if we oversimplify things, we could assume they only need half as much fiat to spam the way they did last year. If they really did orchestrate the transaction surge then, they have shown that they have money to burn, and they're willing to go for it. Any other entity who ticks all the right boxes can go down the same path too. That means the network is at these people's mercy, and that's a problem.

I do hope the increasing Bitcoin price will dissuade malicious entities from network spams, but the better solution would be to address Bitcoin's scalability problem.

For the passed 30 days the average  BTC price fluctuations around 15% and the highest  is +29% and the lowest is -30%. The prediction to reach  $40K it appears as speculation.

So first it is Novogratz saying this prediction and now Llew Claseen. Although I don't know who Claseen really is but why is it that there is a similarity to their prediction. For those altcoin enthusiasts and putting all of their life savings to divest into such altcoins this might be interesting and intriguing to them. I have some alts holding but mostly with bitcoin.

 I just check the coin market cap the the top gainer coins/tokens are those not belong to top 200. The 95% prediction of altcoins to fail bit harsh.
As long there are many altcoins and investors are invested on it, it will prevent the the BTC price to soar high in unprecedented manner.   

Umm what? I just checked myself and the top 100 in terms of change are pretty much all in the top 100 in terms of market cap. Not only that, only the top 63 actually registered any growth at all. Everything else is in negatives. I know this isn't conclusive of anything at all because it only covers 24 hours, but it does not bode well for your case.

Another thing I'd like to note is that pump and dump groups like using coins with small market caps for their bullshit because they tend to be easy to manipulate, so growth can be a non-factor of success in some cases.

I think that's a realistic market price for bitcoin if its demand will continue to rise too. As we know, bitcoin is very volatile and if its volatility will favor to increasing its market cap and price, then a 40,000$ price per token is possible this year.

It could be these two holding a huge number of BTC on their cache therefore they made this prediction as a promotion of BTC after the deep dip.

I feel like this is quite possible if lightning network process is gonna be completed this year. Bitcoin will stay as best cryptocurrency that is sure thing but this negative weather about altcoins isn't valid in my opinion.

It's only an assumption but whether they hold many bitcoin or not they are really helping to pump bitcoin's price. For these predictors who are giving a nice description for bitcoin by giving such statements that bitcoin can be at $xx,xxx.00 in this year. It brings positive review to those spectators that are just looking and watching on how bitcoin moves.
Segwit for now is giving a nice feed back to the network and if LN will be processed then we might see a very close price on what Claseen is saying.

$40,000 is only double the ATH so you’d have to see it as possible. I wouldn’t like to make sweeping statements & declare bitcoin WILL reach a certain figure by the end of the year. Let’s just wait & see.

I think this $40,000 is already predicted and speculated last year but it did not become possible even the most popular speculated value of @20,000 were not hit because of the ultimate corrections. Now another prediction for this mark is now spreading without reliable basis maybe this is because to attract more investors to pour their investment to Bitcoin but anyway this is better than FUD in which it will make Bitcoin price value to fall down.

woww this is a very good article, this article draws a lot catch one eye.
very predictable this can happen. But, will it really happen? indeed the numbers are so fast growing because we have a lot of FUD and if segwit in provide maybe the cost will be cheaper.
I think this person is quite difficult to achieve, it is within a few weeks behind the numbers so rapidly increased but now, the speed is less, not like yesterday again.
it must be you also know, whether it is bitcoinfluctuation, not always up and not always down. predictions are predictions not necessarily every prediction becomes real. we can be optimistic, if not excessive let alone the numbers flow like water, just follow where he goes.  :)

I do not know 40k seems to be low, I have the expectation that bitcoin may even reach 60k in their year, may be not for long but for a few days before the price goes down again, about the altcoins I agree most altcoins are just trash and will disappear sooner or later.

Even if 90% of the ALts that exist today fail, we will still have thousands by the end of 2018. We are still far from having projects covering every opportunity to monetize the protocols and offer new ways to create economic incentives in this new economy.

It's his opinion, after all. It's not something that's going to happen, 100% guaranteed.

I think that there is a chance that this may happen. It does not mean that it's going to happen at all, though.

His opinion is probably not going to influence the market that much, meaning that the theory of him wanting to make a quick dollar by saying this kind of bullish news is probably not true. $40k is nearly a quadrupling of the price, and I personally haven't seen any investments be able to sustain hundreds of percent of growth for 2 years in a row. Bitcoin should be no exception.

Alts come and go, they are quite irrelevant.

Though it is an opinion but there is always a power in the words of the an influential people or a leader.  People tend to take it as a serious statement which can greatly affect the future of crypto.

He doesn't appear to be that influential.

That is really a wide assumption without any base from Llew and I totally agree with you. It is good to encourage investors, but smart investors anyway would not really bother themselves right now with what is going on with bitcoin but would rather hold more positions at the dips anyway since it is not like bitcoin is going anywhere and it has a lot of future. As long as we have not even close to smelling the previous ATH, thinking of $40k is really unimaginable for this year.

Llew Claseen is just a speculator just like anyone else and everything he has said is not even backed by any analysis but just typical assumptions. Now, we all know so many altcoins are already failing and some without real product will definitely fail the more, but having a specific percentage may not really suffice. However, if we look at the percentage of altcoins in the market now without real product, they are far more than those with usable products, but the value of bitcoin? I am not sure about that yet.

It could be to you he is not influential but in other people it could be he is. And the impact of his words could move those people and will start believing and  will risk their money to invest more on BTC.

LOL. Checked the bitcoin record last year, no one around in this forum thought that we could get as close as $20,000 but 2017 proved it can go and even touches it. So don't say that $40,000 is beyond reach. Its barely three months and a lot can happened in the next coming months that will push to price even further that what Llew Claseen has predicted. Of course, he is bullish about bitcoin because I'm sure that he is a big investors, and $40,000 is really hittable. I have no doubt that we can even get to $50,000 if the prevailing markets turn bullish specially at the end of the year. It may be a tough road ahead by eventually we will get to it.

Yeah, it is reasonable, and a lot of things are changing with the bitcoin's protocol development, but at the same time, we also have to leave some room for some possibilities of not seeing that as well.

It is bitcoin, the market is filled with huge monopoly whether we like it or not, so we cannot really say what the market really holds in the short or long term but to just believe that either way, it is a strong one. Whatever bitcoin will hit by the end of 2018 is only known by time.

Bitcoin may reach 40,000 dollars if and only if we can see a constant price hike like few weeks ago until the next couple of months. But it seems that bitcoin is just hovering in the 11,000$ mark for a couple of days now. So chances of reaching 40,000$ is on the line at 50%-50% chance, IMO.

It is always good not to consider everyday as Christmas bro, at least in this market. The fact that we had a huge bull run last year does not mean the market will just break the previous ATH and start another bull run this year.

We have to consider all possibilities and know that we can be in this region between the previous ATH and the lower supports for months. If that time comes and we break the ATH, then maybe we can come back revisiting now.

$40,000 by the end of 2018 seems unlikely but it wouldn’t surprise me. I mean lools at the % increase of price in 2017 throughout those 12 months. Personally I think something like $20,000 - $25,000 is more likely.

But for the current BTC price behavior seems Claseen prediction most likely to fail. Even $20K-$25K  is near impossible.