Price of bitcoin in 5 years? plus explanation not a gambling thread.

[adpinbr]

its stupid to try to give an exact number. One person I respect said it should 3 times itself a year for the next 10 years i.e 3^5=243 times increase 243X200=48,600 in 5 years. other estimates I heave heard is between 1-10 percent of gold which could be anywhere between 4,115-41,150. based on 6.9 trillion of gold and 16,756,000 bitcoins. Anyone else have any good ideas?

I like to think that bitcoin is already worth at least 4 digits but its undervalued due to negative sentiment...

[geofflosophy]

I'll throw my hat into the ring here. I think that the price of bitcoin will be $55,000 in 5 years. This is based on a $1 trillion total market cap for 18 million coins mined at the time.

$1 trillion is really just a nice round number, but it is more the order of magnitude that is important for the sake of discussion here. In five years, bitcoin is going to be an international payment system that is widely accepted everywhere in the world. It will be the number two currency in every market, second to the local fiat. Merchants will prefer to accept bitcoin because of the low fees, 0 fraud risk, potential for keeping some of the money off the books, and of course the international utility; as a result, they will incentivize customers to pay with Bitcoin by offering a discount when paying in Bitcoin, maybe upwards of 5%.

The seeds are still being planted, but the reality is that we have at least four well capitalized payment processors internationally who will be busting ass to get merchants accepting bitcoin: Bitpay, Coinbase, BIPS and now Circle (launched today in the NY Times article). This time next year there will be a number of large companies that accept bitcoin as payment, including a large gaming company like Valve or Blizzard, and there will be neighborhoods throughout the world that will have 20+ brick and mortar businesses within a 5 block radius of each other that all accept and prefer bitcoin. Berlin already features one such neighborhood, and New York City is next; the New York City neighborhood will be highly successful because of all of the Satoshi Square momentum, and on the heels of NYC, SF, Austin and Boston will quickly follow.

[mp420]

I think the price is going to be around $400. It may have topped at several k$ in the meantime, but I don't see how the scalability issues could be handled in time for BTC to continue on its current exponential trajectory.

(I believe the current rally is an outlier and we are going to see much lower prices before seeing much higher prices, as well.)

[geofflosophy]

I think the price is going to be around $400. It may have topped at several k$ in the meantime, but I don't see how the scalability issues could be handled in time for BTC to continue on its current exponential trajectory.

(I believe the current rally is an outlier and we are going to see much lower prices before seeing much higher prices, as well.)

What scalability issues?

[mp420]

I think the price is going to be around $400. It may have topped at several k$ in the meantime, but I don't see how the scalability issues could be handled in time for BTC to continue on its current exponential trajectory.

(I believe the current rally is an outlier and we are going to see much lower prices before seeing much higher prices, as well.)

What scalability issues?

The 1 MB block size limit.

[geofflosophy]

I think the price is going to be around $400. It may have topped at several k$ in the meantime, but I don't see how the scalability issues could be handled in time for BTC to continue on its current exponential trajectory.

(I believe the current rally is an outlier and we are going to see much lower prices before seeing much higher prices, as well.)

What scalability issues?

The 1 MB block size limit.

Why would this be difficult to resolve? I am betting all my bitcoin on this getting resolved before it becomes an issue  .

[notme]

I think the price is going to be around $400. It may have topped at several k$ in the meantime, but I don't see how the scalability issues could be handled in time for BTC to continue on its current exponential trajectory.

(I believe the current rally is an outlier and we are going to see much lower prices before seeing much higher prices, as well.)

What scalability issues?

The 1 MB block size limit.

Why would this be difficult to resolve? I am betting all my bitcoin on this getting resolved before it becomes an issue  .

Because to solve it requires a hard fork and there are members of the community who are strongly against removing the limit.  Bitcoin could potentially fork into two separate, incompatible protocols who will fight over the bitcoin name.

[Shak]

It depends on the ASIC sellers imho. A lot of Hardware was payed by customers in bitcoin, raising the price since the beginning of this year. They needed coins to pay upfront for the ASICS, so bitcoin went upwards.

The ASIC-sellers have to eventually sell those coins to pay their $-Bills of the chip foundries and all their suppliers. To make an operative gain, they have to sell the bitcoins of their margin, too.

Can the markets absob those massive sell orders or will they go down to pre-preorder levels? If they can absorb it and the chinese people really get interested, then bitcoin can go to 400-4000 in 5 years. If the markets crumble... well, btc at 20 bucks again for a long time.

[geofflosophy]

I think the price is going to be around $400. It may have topped at several k$ in the meantime, but I don't see how the scalability issues could be handled in time for BTC to continue on its current exponential trajectory.

(I believe the current rally is an outlier and we are going to see much lower prices before seeing much higher prices, as well.)

What scalability issues?

The 1 MB block size limit.

Why would this be difficult to resolve? I am betting all my bitcoin on this getting resolved before it becomes an issue  .

Because to solve it requires a hard fork and there are members of the community who are strongly against removing the limit.  Bitcoin could potentially fork into two separate, incompatible protocols who will fight over the bitcoin name.

I'm not well enough read on the subject to comment on the technical aspects of this particular scalability issue, but I refuse to believe that this will not be resolved. Bitcoin is designed such that eventually the mining block reward will be zero and the only thing that will keep people mining will be the transaction fees, which means that there will need to be an astronomical number of transactions at this time, especially as the transaction fees continue to move the decimal place over in the face of a growing price of BTC.

[geofflosophy]

I think the price is going to be around $400. It may have topped at several k$ in the meantime, but I don't see how the scalability issues could be handled in time for BTC to continue on its current exponential trajectory.

(I believe the current rally is an outlier and we are going to see much lower prices before seeing much higher prices, as well.)

What scalability issues?

The 1 MB block size limit.

Why would this be difficult to resolve? I am betting all my bitcoin on this getting resolved before it becomes an issue  .

Because to solve it requires a hard fork and there are members of the community who are strongly against removing the limit.  Bitcoin could potentially fork into two separate, incompatible protocols who will fight over the bitcoin name.

I'm not well enough read on the subject to comment on the technical aspects of this particular scalability issue, but I refuse to believe that this will not be resolved. Bitcoin is designed such that eventually the mining block reward will be zero and the only thing that will keep people mining will be the transaction fees, which means that there will need to be an astronomical number of transactions at this time, especially as the transaction fees continue to move the decimal place over in the face of a growing price of BTC.

I got some feedback on this from Gavin in a thread here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=322748.msg3455664#msg3455664

Very much not concerned...

[TheQuin]

It depends on the ASIC sellers imho. A lot of Hardware was payed by customers in bitcoin, raising the price since the beginning of this year. They needed coins to pay upfront for the ASICS, so bitcoin went upwards.

The ASIC-sellers have to eventually sell those coins to pay their $-Bills of the chip foundries and all their suppliers. To make an operative gain, they have to sell the bitcoins of their margin, too.

Can the markets absob those massive sell orders or will they go down to pre-preorder levels? If they can absorb it and the chinese people really get interested, then bitcoin can go to 400-4000 in 5 years. If the markets crumble... well, btc at 20 bucks again for a long time.

I'm guessing that the ASIC mfgs already sold most or all of their coin to pay the bills for parts and labour. We can only speculate of the supply and demand for BTC in the future.

[geofflosophy]

It depends on the ASIC sellers imho. A lot of Hardware was payed by customers in bitcoin, raising the price since the beginning of this year. They needed coins to pay upfront for the ASICS, so bitcoin went upwards.

The ASIC-sellers have to eventually sell those coins to pay their $-Bills of the chip foundries and all their suppliers. To make an operative gain, they have to sell the bitcoins of their margin, too.

Can the markets absob those massive sell orders or will they go down to pre-preorder levels? If they can absorb it and the chinese people really get interested, then bitcoin can go to 400-4000 in 5 years. If the markets crumble... well, btc at 20 bucks again for a long time.

I'm guessing that the ASIC mfgs already sold most or all of their coin to pay the bills for parts and labour. We can only speculate of the supply and demand for BTC in the future.

Yea ASIC manufacturers all used Bitpay, I would be very surprised if any of them kept a substantial portion of the charges in bitcoin rather than having it autodeposited as fiat next day. BFL didn't keep any in BTC.

[bitrider]

I'll throw my hat into the ring here. I think that the price of bitcoin will be $55,000 in 5 years. This is based on a $1 trillion total market cap for 18 million coins mined at the time.

$1 trillion is really just a nice round number, but it is more the order of magnitude that is important for the sake of discussion here. In five years, bitcoin is going to be an international payment system that is widely accepted everywhere in the world. It will be the number two currency in every market, second to the local fiat. Merchants will prefer to accept bitcoin because of the low fees, 0 fraud risk, potential for keeping some of the money off the books, and of course the international utility; as a result, they will incentivize customers to pay with Bitcoin by offering a discount when paying in Bitcoin, maybe upwards of 5%.

The seeds are still being planted, but the reality is that we have at least four well capitalized payment processors internationally who will be busting ass to get merchants accepting bitcoin: Bitpay, Coinbase, BIPS and now Circle (launched today in the NY Times article). This time next year there will be a number of large companies that accept bitcoin as payment, including a large gaming company like Valve or Blizzard, and there will be neighborhoods throughout the world that will have 20+ brick and mortar businesses within a 5 block radius of each other that all accept and prefer bitcoin. Berlin already features one such neighborhood, and New York City is next; the New York City neighborhood will be highly successful because of all of the Satoshi Square momentum, and on the heels of NYC, SF, Austin and Boston will quickly follow.

+1 That's a great scenario you have painted, and very similar to what I see down the road, based on what is happening right now and our history so far. And your number is as good as any. Anything is pretty much a wild guess at this point. Actually I think $50,000/btc is conservative (as crazy as that sounds when I say it out loud). Who would guessed in 2005 that FB would have a billion users (a billion!! - holy shit!)

I also believe the scalability issues will be resolved. I'm not the tech expert to make that conclusion, I just watch and listen to the most knowledgeable, experienced people I can find - particularly those who have had previous success in seeing the future before most others, and have proven themselves over the years - and make my conclusions based on that. Guaranteed? Of course not.

First, it is probably going to be at least year or two before we start facing block size as a real limitation, the growth of the ecosystem will have been tremendous by then, with serious players and big money invested across the board. Although not perfect obviously, Gavin has been very confident and consistent around this issue for a long time now. I just believe there will just be too much incentive from so many sides to figure it out, and resolve the problems. Of course this can play out in lots of ways, but that is the nature of speculation...a percentage game...and I think the odds are heavily in bitcoin's favor as a triumphant, massively disruptive technology, and that means...well you all know what that means. 

[notme]

I think the price is going to be around $400. It may have topped at several k$ in the meantime, but I don't see how the scalability issues could be handled in time for BTC to continue on its current exponential trajectory.

(I believe the current rally is an outlier and we are going to see much lower prices before seeing much higher prices, as well.)

What scalability issues?

The 1 MB block size limit.

Why would this be difficult to resolve? I am betting all my bitcoin on this getting resolved before it becomes an issue  .

Because to solve it requires a hard fork and there are members of the community who are strongly against removing the limit.  Bitcoin could potentially fork into two separate, incompatible protocols who will fight over the bitcoin name.

I'm not well enough read on the subject to comment on the technical aspects of this particular scalability issue, but I refuse to believe that this will not be resolved. Bitcoin is designed such that eventually the mining block reward will be zero and the only thing that will keep people mining will be the transaction fees, which means that there will need to be an astronomical number of transactions at this time, especially as the transaction fees continue to move the decimal place over in the face of a growing price of BTC.

That's exactly why we need a limit of some sort.  Unlimited transactions means no competition for block space and so fees will be limited to generosity.  I doubt we can stick with 1 mb too much longer, but we need sensible rules about the growth of the limit that are nonmanipulable.  Just removing it entirely will turn a limited resource into an unlimited resource, and that resource is supposed to pay for the security of bitcoin once the subsidy tapers off.  When we lift it we need sensible rules and near perfect consensus.  It will be a hard fork, so there is always the potential someone will keep a chain going on the old rules.  This will cause mass confusion among people who barely understand bitcoin in the first place.

I'm not saying it is a showstopper, I'm just saying how the transition is handled will play a huge role in where bitcoin is in 5 years.  It's everyone always trying to sweep it under the rug that worries me.

[Peter R]

I'll throw my hat into the ring here. I think that the price of bitcoin will be $55,000 in 5 years. This is based on a $1 trillion total market cap for 18 million coins mined at the time.

$1 trillion is really just a nice round number, but it is more the order of magnitude that is important for the sake of discussion here. In five years, bitcoin is going to be an international payment system that is widely accepted everywhere in the world. It will be the number two currency in every market, second to the local fiat. Merchants will prefer to accept bitcoin because of the low fees, 0 fraud risk, potential for keeping some of the money off the books, and of course the international utility; as a result, they will incentivize customers to pay with Bitcoin by offering a discount when paying in Bitcoin, maybe upwards of 5%.

The seeds are still being planted, but the reality is that we have at least four well capitalized payment processors internationally who will be busting ass to get merchants accepting bitcoin: Bitpay, Coinbase, BIPS and now Circle (launched today in the NY Times article). This time next year there will be a number of large companies that accept bitcoin as payment, including a large gaming company like Valve or Blizzard, and there will be neighborhoods throughout the world that will have 20+ brick and mortar businesses within a 5 block radius of each other that all accept and prefer bitcoin. Berlin already features one such neighborhood, and New York City is next; the New York City neighborhood will be highly successful because of all of the Satoshi Square momentum, and on the heels of NYC, SF, Austin and Boston will quickly follow.

Great post geofflosophy!

[oda.krell]

I think the price is going to be around $400. It may have topped at several k$ in the meantime, but I don't see how the scalability issues could be handled in time for BTC to continue on its current exponential trajectory.

(I believe the current rally is an outlier and we are going to see much lower prices before seeing much higher prices, as well.)

What scalability issues?

The 1 MB block size limit.

Why would this be difficult to resolve? I am betting all my bitcoin on this getting resolved before it becomes an issue  .

Because to solve it requires a hard fork and there are members of the community who are strongly against removing the limit.  Bitcoin could potentially fork into two separate, incompatible protocols who will fight over the bitcoin name.

I'm not well enough read on the subject to comment on the technical aspects of this particular scalability issue, but I refuse to believe that this will not be resolved. Bitcoin is designed such that eventually the mining block reward will be zero and the only thing that will keep people mining will be the transaction fees, which means that there will need to be an astronomical number of transactions at this time, especially as the transaction fees continue to move the decimal place over in the face of a growing price of BTC.

I got some feedback on this from Gavin in a thread here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=322748.msg3455664#msg3455664

Very much not concerned...

Haha, I love how you basically just thought "fuck it, I'll just ask Gavin".

Also, his answer is mildly surprising (to me at least).

Last time I looked into the (block size limit) topic, it seemed to me that the point was still very much contentious. But Gavin's reaction now sounds like that phase is over

(yes, I know, Gavin =/= Bernanke, and his word isn't final, but I don't expect him to describe the situation as relatively clear cut when in reality he has to have serious doubts if some form of increase will be accepted without a hard fork)

[kokojie]

I think the price is going to be around $400. It may have topped at several k$ in the meantime, but I don't see how the scalability issues could be handled in time for BTC to continue on its current exponential trajectory.

(I believe the current rally is an outlier and we are going to see much lower prices before seeing much higher prices, as well.)

What scalability issues?

The 1 MB block size limit.

Why would this be difficult to resolve? I am betting all my bitcoin on this getting resolved before it becomes an issue  .

You just lost all your bitcoin then. It is already an issue, we have hit 1MB blocks before, and no it haven't been resolved.

[mgio]

Everyone realizes it will have to be raised at some point. It is essential to keep it low as long as possible only raising it multiple times as it is absolutely necessary.

[adpinbr]

please keep this thread for speculation on price in 5 years, block size debates should be held in the tech section were qualified people can answer and not noobz like us trying to make a quick buck. Thanks

[TheQuin]

please keep this thread for speculation on price in 5 years, block size debates should be held in the tech section were qualified people can answer and not noobz like us trying to make a quick buck. Thanks