How far into the future are you looking?

[nwbitcoin]

As someone who has seem the internet grow from nothing to what we have today, as well as been involved with a large number of ideas and fads that went nowhere - I find it fascinating to see what drives others into making their predictions.

Considering that the whole global bitcoin market capitalization is no larger than the turnover of a single medium sided niche retailer at $300000000, there is a lot of noise about how bitcoin is going to take over the world tomorrow.  This ignores the actual size of the mountain it needs to climb to be on par in value with a single mainstream currency.

If there was only enough dollars in the world to buy Google (Total Market valuation of $265Bn), and we converted them to bitcoins, each coin would be worth $12000. If you want bigger numbers, if you put the market value of all the US companies in Europe together, you would need $5482966911657.  Again, if this was the total number of dollars in existence, and we wanted to convert them to bitcoins, each coin would be worth $261000.  The total number of dollars in use is far greater than this. 

With this in mind, I can understand that we have to start somewhere, and that is why I am happy that a Bitcoin is currently worth £30.

But how far forward are you valuing your coins?

Do you think we will ever get to the sort of value needed to make the replacement of the dollar scenario a reality?

Are we looking 5 years ahead, or 50 years?

Or is the value of bitcoins purely down to its value as an idea rather than anything practical?

[piramida]

bitcoin quadruples every year. so over 300,000 in 7 years. unless it dies, which is also possible.

[sunnankar]

bitcoin quadruples every year. so over $300,000 in 7 years. unless it dies, which is also possible.

The problem with such an outlandish amount is that it is actually within the realm of what is possible although the probability is still extremely low. If the Internet and ecommerce continue their growth and if Bitcoin becomes the local currency and preferred medium of exchange on the Internet and if the USD continues losing its market share and its dominant position as the world reserve currency then it is possible that the four major currencies would be the USD, Yuan, EUR and Bitcoin with a few secondary currencies like the Yen and Real.

[bam91]

I give bitcoins a solid 5 years before another challenger arises.

[XxionxX]

5-10 years min

[Woodcock36]

I have a 5 year, a 10 year, and a 30 year plan. But imho plans were made to be broken. I trust in BTC, but at any given point all that planning can go to shit. I was heavily involved in commercial real estate from 2001-2007, and watched a lot of good people lose their income, families, lives. So look towards the future, but always have a backup plan. I would love to see what the divorce rates were for people in the financial/real estate sector after the crash....I knew too many people who literally lost not only money, but their families over their short-sightedness. I never leverage too much, and I am keeping a very low-profile. That is part of the reason bitcoin is interesting to me. I know that a user-driven currency will never be truly valueless because on some level we will still be able to use it as trade. I almost see it like being a furtrader in the digital age. I believe that once the current financial system collapses on itself all we will have left is physical trading. Well cryptocurrencies on the whole will become what we use to 'trade' online when the bottom drops out and we are standing in a crater of our own creation. I feel like I should add a #tinfoilhats to this....

[Melbustus]

...
Are we looking 5 years ahead, or 50 years?
...

I say 10-20yrs before potentially getting to the success scenario.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Greater than $10B market value .... in a decade.  I think many "coinholders" have completely outlandish views of how quickly Bitcoin will grow.  Pretty soon Bitcoin is going to start hitting the law of large numbers.   A company can pretty easily grow from $1M in revenue to $10M but going to $100M takes an entirely different approach (distribution network, branch offices, etc), and going to $1B in sales requires a whole different level of operation, the move to $10B and $100B once again requires momunmental changes in the company operation.  Now I know Bitcoin isn't a company but if it grows "too fast" the limits of the existing system (wallets which can easily hacked, deleted, corrupted, etc) will acts as a brake on future growth.  In time Bitcoin will develop but even Google (a massive growth story) didn't get where it is today in a year or two or even ten.

A couple years ago I said Bitcoin is like many other disruptive technologies (internet, social media, filesharing, voip, cellphones) adoption from earliest innovators to mass users is usually a decade or more.  2011 was really the start of the innovation chain.  Exchanges, mining pools, the first Bitcoin related enterprises.  2012 saw some big VC money come in, and I think 2013 is going to be an interesting year.  Still mainstream adoption is probably a year 2020 or later event.

[nwbitcoin]

Some very interesting feedback.

I think DeathandTaxes is the most realistic in highlighting that many of the issues that are going to cause problems are not yet on the horizon.

That 10 fold increase which is so easy to say, but so difficult to do is legend in the way it kills companies who overtrade.

I really don't see how bitcoin is able to scale in a way that could make it work in the way that would value it at $x gazillion etc!

However, where the value might be is in learning to to make it work.  That is priceless and is going to benefit the users of this forum far more than the bits of digital currencies currently in their wallets in the long term.

Looking at the way that technology develops, an idea that is currently in the lab, will be on the high st in 30 years.  Electronics takes half that time, and software half again. All this seems to indicate that crypto currency is 7-8 years away.

However, as mentioned earlier, Google took a few years to grow too, but if we are comparing bitcoin with search engines, I would be far more likely to call bitcoin Yahoo.  Ripple may be Google, but more likely AltaVista.  But using history to predict the future was never that easy!

[KTE]

Keep in mind though that we're dealing with a new currency, and unlike anything else its sole purpose is to transfer value from one person to another. The scenario here is very different than anything that has come before, so it's hard to make a convincing argument that Bitcoin should follow the same pattern as the value of a new technology sector.

Also, the valuation of bitcoin is wildly different than the valuation of a company, as Bitcoin doesn't have to deal with upkeep costs, it's just a currency.

Could be ten years or more to 10 billion, could end in the trash before that, or could be anything in between.

[jimbobway]

In 1.5 to 2 years I predict bitcoin will hit $1 Billion Market Cap.  Bitcoin growth is accelerating and is exponential.

• Exchanges, Underground Websites, Minor Companies. Bitcoin goes from $5 to $20
• Mega Affiliates Accept Bitcoin. 3 million Mega users.  Bitcoin goes from $20 to $30+.
• Major Casinos Accept Bitcoin Within 1 year - Money pours in possibly more than doubling market cap.  $300 million to $600+ million ($30 to $60).  Will take 1-2 years.