Where do you think bitcoin will be in about 8 years?

[RationalSpeculator]

So far, if you look at the price on a (best fit removing all the bubbles) log scale (http://blockchain.info/charts/market-price?showDataPoints=false&show_header=true&daysAverageString=1&timespan=all&scale=1&address=) for all time, the price has been increasing by between 200% and 500% per year.  So lets assume that the initial expansion was faster then any other time in history and we have a slowing of new adopters to a more realistic rate.  Lets even throw in a bad year for the hell of it.  See my projections below.  This works out to about 91% increase a year for the next 8 years.  Of course I just pulled all of these projections out of my ass and they have no basis in fact.  

July 2010 - $0
July 2011 - $2 (200% increase)
July 2012 - $7 (250% increase)
July 2013 - $44 (520% increase) (yes, this is the true value of bitcoin at the moment IMO)
----------------------- PROJECTIONS ----------------------
July 2014 - $154 (350% increase)
July 2015 - $385 (250% increase)
July 2016 - $577 (50% increase)
July 2017 - $721 (25% increase)
July 2018 - $811 (12% increase)
July 2019 - $859 (6% increase)
July 2020 - $773 (10% loss)
July 2021 - $835 (8% increase)

I think your calculation contains mathematical errors.

The average yearly increase in price has been 900% per year if you start calculating from the first price bitcoins were valued.

(sorry in € but $ is the same % increase)

2013 (13 april): € 89.89  +779%   
2012: € 10.23  +189%   
2011: € 3.54    +1375%
2010: € 0.24    +387%   
2009: € 0.04    +4867%
2008: € 0.00082

This was a 10 000 000% increase in 5 years.

Agreed that the yearly price increase will go down over time. I estimate the increase will be 100 times less over the next 8-10 years. If governments do not outlaw bitcoins, my estimation is that bitcoin will be valued around $1000 billion ($50 000 per coin) in 8-10 years, an increase of 100 000%.

I realize these are crazy numbers but you get those numbers by simply tenfolding 3 times. $1000 billion will still be a valuation 10 times smaller than the market cap of gold ($10 000 billion), and still 30 times smaller than the market cap of all fiat currencies combined ($30 000 billion).

However, at $1000 billion bitcoin will (finally!) be valued higher than any single company (apple being around $400 billion today). Some mainstream sectors in the economy will have adopted bitcoin and it will be clear by then that bitcoin will likely become a currency more important than gold or fiat currencies.

Here how I see that price being realized roughly, the next bubble in 2-3 years will go to a few $1000 per coin and fall back to a few $100. The bubble after that in 5 years will go to a few $10 000 per coin and fall back to a few $1000. The bubble in 8-10 years will go to a few $100 000 per coin and will fall back to a few $10 000. Just my guess.

Note, ofcourse it can fail too. Therefore only invest a % of your capital in it and lock in profits from time to time indefinitely. Also, even when it succeeds, many that buy when prices are going hyperbolic will have to look at painful losses for years.  Also do not lose your eye from the ball, many btc investors will miss out due to lost coins, stolen coins, scams, exchange shutdowns and above all inferior stock, bond and altcoin investments.

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[meowmeowbrowncow]

I can only hope that massive adoption of Bitcoin 'version 2' has occurred.


The fundamental tenets of Bitcoin are sound, but the technical implementation needs work - aka - a very hard fork.


The major issue, as I see it, is the lack of strata for transactions, so to be able to define transaction SLA's. 

When I say strata, I mean discrete, definitive (within a very reasonable margin) stratum buckets for tx's.


Without this BTC has no hope for widespread, day-to-day usage.  Exactly what BTC needs for adoption.

[RationalSpeculator]

The major issue, as I see it, is the lack of strata for transactions, so to be able to define transaction SLA's.  

When I say strata, I mean discrete, definitive (within a very reasonable margin) stratum buckets for tx's.


Without this BTC has no hope for widespread, day-to-day usage.  Exactly what BTC needs for adoption.

This is latin for me. Could you explain like I'm a 5 year old?

[wobber]

Bitcoin at $10,000 or more (ie $50,000) sounds improbable. Not all people in the world will use bitcoin if it's main use is for speculation.

1 Coin at this price would have big psychological effect and I am unsure that mBTC will catch.

BTC at 300,000 is delusional.

[RationalSpeculator]

Bitcoin at $10,000 or more (ie $50,000) sounds improbable. Not all people in the world will use bitcoin if it's main use is for speculation.

No, just like today, many will speculate that even more will use it in the future.

Price leads utility.

[Zaih]

over $10k each or another crypto currency will have taken over.

Either way, crypto currency is the future

[jhansen858]

$0

Here are some wild speculations. Lets see if any of them come true ( if these forums still exist in 8 years )

In order of most probable, IMO

1- people abandon bitcoin because of scalability issue
2- government block bitcoin exchanges and ask ISP to filter the protocol
3- sha-256 encryption is broken
4- bitcoin developers make stupid design decision that causes bitcoin to implode and other all coin to take stage
5- people realise idea of distributed currency system technically in feasible and all alt coins die out
6- bitcoin still going but goes underground after government regulation
7- governments realise unable to regulate bitcoin , bitcoin gains mass adoption and all existing world currencies cease to exist, to be replaced by bitcoin
8- governments and banks introduce their own version of bitcoin that successfully outcompetes bitcoin, due to government ability to legislate against bitcoin

So you think its more likely that sha256 gets broken then bitcoin gains mass adoption?  Couldn't they just add another round of SHA or make it SHA-512 at that point ??

[jhansen858]

If you want to let your enthusiasm off its leash, then just draw this trend-line forward a few more years.
It will plateau eventually. But when? If it is in 8 years then Bitcoin would be a major world currency used in most transactions.

How did you generate that chart?

[naphto]

The real question is not really how he generated it, but is it consistent? No.

[Rampion]

bitcoin will really be "cash of internet" and 1btc will be approx 2,500$

You people have no vision! Add 2-3 orders of magnitude to that number.

This. And they have short memory, they do not remember that 2 years and half ago 1 BTC was $0.095, and that just 5 months ago it was at $15.

Saying $1,000 or $2,500 in 8 years is a joke. And if it really becomes the "cash of the internet", you would be looking more at $250,000 per BTC.

Simple math.

[xorglub]

In 8 years, 1 BTC will either be 1 BTC as is will have mostly replaced today's major currencies, or 0 if it fails / gets superceded.

Too long of a timeframe to make any predictions more precise than that.

[melvster]

BTC is in pole position to become the reserve currency of the internet.

But actual 'physical' BTC will be a smaller part.  You will have other coins and derivatives such as contracts for differences based on bitcoin inflating the supply.

Even still I expect it to stabilize around 5000 if it survives in its current form ...

[solex]

How did you generate that chart?

It just uses bitcoincharts.com daily price data and was formatted in Excel.

[johnyj]

I believe that even before we reach the 12.5 coin block reward, the transaction fee will reach 12.5 coin per block, so the real block reward will effectively become less and less meaningful for miners

Higher transaction fee (resulted from large volume of transactions, not per transaction cost) will keep the block size at a reasonable level, and keep the mining incentive strong thus protect the network security and make bitcoin always attractive for miners and mining equipment makers

[chriswilmer]

bitcoin will really be "cash of internet" and 1btc will be approx 2,500$

You people have no vision! Add 2-3 orders of magnitude to that number.

Yeah exactly. In 8 years, the price of bitcoin will be $50,000+ each or 0. Nothing in between.

+1

[flipperfish]

I think that within the next 8 years the peak in adoption rate will have been reached. At some time in the future the "critical mass" of bitcoin users (consumer side AND services, like shops, exchanges, online, offline, whatever) will be reached. This causes a positive feedback loop in adoption rate leading to the peak of adoption rate. What this will do to the price depends on how well the bitcoin core-system and also the surrounding ecosystem can handle all the new users.