$5000+ bitcoin?

[MarkLyford]

I have a friend of mine at the conference this weekend and he has been speaking to a few people who think a $5000 + bitcoin could be possible.

Thoughts ?

[candoo]

I have a friend of mine at the conference this weekend and he has been speaking to a few people who think a $5000 + bitcoin could be possible.

Thoughts ?

This is how its gonna look 2014

[Birdy]

Yes, it is possible.
If Bitcoin keeps growing it's bound to happen due to the limited supply.

[SamS]

I have a friend of mine at the conference this weekend and he has been speaking to a few people who think a $5000 + bitcoin could be possible.

Thoughts ?

Take 21M coins and multiply it by whatever number suits your fancy. For $5K, that's $105B. The US money supply is around $3T currently. Gross domestic product was $15T a few years back.

Knock yourself out.

[aaaxn]

Let's do some math. 3600 new coins mined a day (for next 3 years) at $5000 per bitcoin would mean that network operation would cost $18 000 000 daily. Is it likely? I think not.

[firstlast]

5 thousand dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? 5 million dollars.

 

[Luckybit]

I have a friend of mine at the conference this weekend and he has been speaking to a few people who think a $5000 + bitcoin could be possible.

Thoughts ?

Take 21M coins and multiply it by whatever number suits your fancy. For $5K, that's $105B. The US money supply is around $3T currently. Gross domestic product was $15T a few years back.

Knock yourself out.

It actually wouldn't take much to reach 5k. It could reach 5k by the end of the year if the right media and circumstances occur. But the infrastructure cannot handle it yet and hackers would probably DDOS the exchanges to make sure that it doesn't get that high before they get some. It's going to be a challenge in terms of infrastructure not in terms of getting demand. Demand will come on its own.

[SamS]

I have a friend of mine at the conference this weekend and he has been speaking to a few people who think a $5000 + bitcoin could be possible.

Thoughts ?

Take 21M coins and multiply it by whatever number suits your fancy. For $5K, that's $105B. The US money supply is around $3T currently. Gross domestic product was $15T a few years back.

Knock yourself out.

It actually wouldn't take much to reach 5k. It could reach 5k by the end of the year if the right media and circumstances occur. But the infrastructure cannot handle it yet and hackers would probably DDOS the exchanges to make sure that it doesn't get that high before they get some. It's going to be a challenge in terms of infrastructure not in terms of getting demand. Demand will come on its own.

Ultimately, there's 21M coins x 100M satoshi's/coin right? That's a couple of quadrillion units I think. There's a lot of room for infrastructure growth as you note. If a Satoshi was worth a USD, then a coin would be worth $100M. And now back to our previously programmed reality.

[proudhon]

Let's do some math. 3600 new coins mined a day (for next 3 years) at $5000 per bitcoin would mean that network operation would cost $18 000 000 daily. Is it likely? I think not.

I don't think that calculation you did is the daily operating cost.

[coastermonger]

What a lot of people seem to forget is that for the time being, bitcoin is still inflating.  Yes IN-flating in the sense that more of it is newly mined each day.  Despite the eventual hard limit, 3600 BTC are created out of nothing each day and that number correlates with about 12% inflation per year (exponentially decreasing over time, yes)

This correlates with the amount of "sell pressure" that can exist for BTC at a given price.  Run this little thought experiment:  

If the bitcoin is equivalently traded for $100 USD, then 100*3600= $360,000 equivalent USD is made each day.  The global market effectively needs to cumulatively buy or hold more than 360k each day in order to sustain or raise the BTC price.

If the bitcoin price is traded for $5,000 USD, then 5,000*3600=  18,000,000. The global market effectively needs to cumulatively buy or hold more than 18m each day in order to sustain or raise the BTC price.  Notice that this is harder to sustain.  As the price gets higher it becomes harder to buy the amount required to keep up with inflation.  It also gets more attractive to sell.  So an equilibrium is roughly reached.  

Then let's examine what happens in the next 4 years as the mining reward is cut in half.  
$5,000*1800= $9,000,000 equivalent USD mined each day.  Now that BTC is more scarce it becomes easier to sustain a price level like $5,000 .

Let's go ahead and think longer term.  Past the year 2025 only about 450 BTC will be mined each day.  

$5,000*450= $2,250,000  Bitcoins will be much more scarce by then, making the $5000 USD/BTC price level even more likely to be sustainable or able to be surpassed.  

And then hypothetically if no more bitcoins were to be created ever as of today, then there would be no inflation ever and the price would be subjected entirely to demand.  

So to answer your question OP will the price of BTC be $5,000 someday?  If bitcoin goes long term the answer is a very likely yes, but I myself am not banking on it anytime soon.  We need to be much more scarce before we can sustain those levels.

[Brushan]

Let's wait for the reward halving in 2016 then it's likely to happen.

[aaaxn]

I don't think that calculation you did is the daily operating cost.

Well it is. If such prices are sustained for some period of times competition among miners will make sure that all of revenue from blocks would be used to pay for hardware, electricity, return on capital and human labor, so it is effectively cost of keeping network running.

[Welsh]

Guys, this doesn't mean stop spending, for Bitcoin to grow we need to show that Bitcoin is a actual currency, and not just a savings account. For Bitcoin to grow, we need to show the media that there is use for Bitcoin, buy whatever you can with Bitcoin.
Otherwise, if we STOP spending, Bitcoin will become useless, lose value. If WE keep purchasing it shows strength.

But. remember, don't spend too much.

I wish you all good luck, in the next few years, I hope to see you all happy you are part of the Bitcoin community.

[stslimited]

Bitcoin will have growing pains at certain dollar thresholds.

the lack of an organized and useful futures market is one thing keeping it from growing its market cap above a few billion dollars

the lack of ways to move over $100k daily from btc into cash is also obviously going to make it impractical for anyone doing real trade trying to settle a balance

[MarkLyford]

This belongs in the speculation forum.

Is there a way I can move it myself? Guess not?

[Realpra]

Quite possibly.

Try to play with this tool. You can argue the assumptions are wrong, but it can open your mind.

[MarkLyford]

very interesting feedback guys, this is why I am growing to love this place.

[SamS]

Quite possibly.

Try to play with this tool. You can argue the assumptions are wrong, but it can open your mind.

That's cool. It would be nice to see a $ value for % of the world economy to give oneself a sanity check. And if you wanted to refine it further, you could add sector values for those sectors which Bitcoin might uniquely be suited for.

[Stunna]

If mass adoption takes place then this is indeed a possibility. I don't see this happening within the near future however. The key to this will be through making bitcoins more consumer friendly and the only way I could imagine a price like this is if major fiat currencies fail.

[alkuluku]

If mass adoption takes place then this is indeed a possibility. I don't see this happening within the near future however. The key to this will be through making bitcoins more consumer friendly and the only way I could imagine a price like this is if major fiat currencies fail.

I agree.