Pantera Capital: Bitcoin Price Will Reach $67,500 by End of 2019

[Bagaji]

The first person that replied has made a very good point and am very much in support of all his/her submission to your question but to add a little, all their submission is just a mere speculation which may and may not come to fulfilment at the end of 2019 and there is no different from what others including myself have speculated in the past of which some came to fulfilment while others were the other way round.

[exstasie]

Any btc price prediction should be taken with a grain of salt.
Is it possible? Yes
Probable? Maybe, if this decline is structurally similar to $250 to $70 decline in the summer of 2013.
Bitmain and Innosilicon (competitor) are producing vast amounts of mining machines and people are buying (so far).

Right now when mining at a cost of 10c/kwh, breakeven point is somewhere at $7000-8000/btc.
How likely would be a five-fold difficulty increase in 1.5-2 years?
Quite likely as it would take slightly less than 4% increase in difficulty per adjustment period (about 13 days).
last five adjustment periods were 6.91% on average.
last 10 adjustment periods were 5.7% on average.

With 5.7% adjustment per 13 day period in the next 1.5 years, btc price would have to be $70000-80000/btc for miners to break even when mining at the end of that period (end of 2019, early 2020).

These are excellent points. I also did a similiar calculation a while ago and realized that btc was not profitable to mine while around 6k. I noticed very few people make an effort and do this kind of analysis. Like you said earlier, people are lost in their emotions instead of keeping a rational outlook or dig a little deeper to understand the costs of mining. Based on that the 60k projection appears suddenly not so outlandish any more.

I see the logic of extrapolating from current profitability, but I don't think it's correct, because it assumes constant bid-side demand.

It doesn't matter what it costs to produce BTC; it only matters what the market is willing to pay for it. If the market isn't willing to pay $60,000 or $80,000 on the above timeline, then difficulty will simply drop. Perhaps it will even plummet in a death spiral.

Miners aren't guaranteed profitability by any means. Marginal miners are constantly getting squeezed out of the market, and if there is a reversal in the general trend, there could be a blood bath of miners shutting down. This is all totally unpredictable.

[Herbert2020]

$67,500 in 2019 is way too much, I know this price is acheiveable if there is a major change or trigger in the price of bitcoin but still yet,  we can't use what happened in  the year 2017 to judge the next price if bitcoin. I say the year 2017 may end with the price of $15,000-$20,000 and won't cross that price. It's just too much to speculate $67,500 so quickly and yet ends up in nothing.

and why do you think it is "too much", what criteria is making a price "too much" and another "too low"?

bitcoin is extremely under-priced not just because it went to a certain price and came back but because of what it does and what it is and also the limited supply that it has. when price goes from $1000 to $20000 in one year it shows how much money has always been waiting to come in and how much demand there is for bitcoin. everyone plays it down specially the media to pretend it is not happening but it is.

[Wind_FURY]

$67,500 in 2019 is way too much, I know this price is acheiveable if there is a major change or trigger in the price of bitcoin but still yet,  we can't use what happened in  the year 2017 to judge the next price if bitcoin. I say the year 2017 may end with the price of $15,000-$20,000 and won't cross that price. It's just too much to speculate $67,500 so quickly and yet ends up in nothing.

and why do you think it is "too much", what criteria is making a price "too much" and another "too low"?

bitcoin is extremely under-priced not just because it went to a certain price and came back but because of what it does and what it is and also the limited supply that it has. when price goes from $1000 to $20000 in one year it shows how much money has always been waiting to come in and how much demand there is for bitcoin. everyone plays it down specially the media to pretend it is not happening but it is.

Plus "the end of 2019" is only 5 months away from the next halving. The market may react positively earlier or later, but I am fairly optimistic that Bitcoin could find its real value and will be "flying" on 6 figures by end of 2020.

[maryriver]

Any btc price prediction should be taken with a grain of salt.
Is it possible? Yes
Probable? Maybe, if this decline is structurally similar to $250 to $70 decline in the summer of 2013.
Bitmain and Innosilicon (competitor) are producing vast amounts of mining machines and people are buying (so far).

Right now when mining at a cost of 10c/kwh, breakeven point is somewhere at $7000-8000/btc.
How likely would be a five-fold difficulty increase in 1.5-2 years?
Quite likely as it would take slightly less than 4% increase in difficulty per adjustment period (about 13 days).
last five adjustment periods were 6.91% on average.
last 10 adjustment periods were 5.7% on average.

With 5.7% adjustment per 13 day period in the next 1.5 years, btc price would have to be $70000-80000/btc for miners to break even when mining at the end of that period (end of 2019, early 2020).

These are excellent points. I also did a similiar calculation a while ago and realized that btc was not profitable to mine while around 6k. I noticed very few people make an effort and do this kind of analysis. Like you said earlier, people are lost in their emotions instead of keeping a rational outlook or dig a little deeper to understand the costs of mining. Based on that the 60k projection appears suddenly not so outlandish any more.

I see the logic of extrapolating from current profitability, but I don't think it's correct, because it assumes constant bid-side demand.

It doesn't matter what it costs to produce BTC; it only matters what the market is willing to pay for it. If the market isn't willing to pay $60,000 or $80,000 on the above timeline, then difficulty will simply drop. Perhaps it will even plummet in a death spiral.

Miners aren't guaranteed profitability by any means. Marginal miners are constantly getting squeezed out of the market, and if there is a reversal in the general trend, there could be a blood bath of miners shutting down. This is all totally unpredictable.

This is what I'm thinking as well. There isn't a logical extrapolation from past prices because the demand can't be predicted using the same patterns. How do we know that there will still be such a demand for the coin in the future after such a big orgasmic speculative burst last winter? Maybe the people who got hurt told all their friends to stay away from bitcoin and no one's gonna come back. Or maybe hedge funds are piling on their shorts and hoping the rocket will run out of fuel. Or, maybe it will go back up again.

Miners are going to be in even more trouble when the next halvening comes around.