How much bigger can Bitcoin get?

[cossakman]

$50 Billion?  $100 Billion?  $1 trillion? 

[jonanon]

No one knows, more adoption and widespread use will lead to a more valuable BTC (in terms of USD) but it'd be wrong to speculate by how much.

[samjtemp]

The last 4 years has been the "Alpha", now we are in the Beta.

Bitcoin won't know it's true value until you can spend it virtually everywhere, on every continent, in every country, including person to person transactions using cellphones and ATM machines. By the end of 2014 we may then be in the mainstream phase, and having to watch out for the real speculative bubble.

I'm thinking $7,000-10,000 per btc.

If it survives the next wave then who knows, $100,000 or more.

This is in the rhealm of possibility but by that point there will be heavy competition. At the momeny alt coins are a joke but the "2nd Generation" is showing some promise. Nxt tried but was more of a scam than anything, Protoshares a great idea that is showing some promise, CGB is a very unique idea that has yet to be fully released, and as a beta tester of Emunies, looks like a combination of all these things and is about to blow the top off when it get's released. It's going to rock the boat and unlike other alts not feed off of bitcoin's success but draw in crowds independently.

[Bitcoinpro]

max potential today is 50 Trillion - 2000 Trillion who knows in 10 years it could be even more

[Realpra]

Unless scaling issues and pool issues are solved not much bigger.

Good news is its possible, bad is we don't seem to have willing developers.

[GratisBitcoin]

Unless scaling issues and pool issues are solved not much bigger.

Good news is its possible, bad is we don't seem to have willing developers.

What do you mean scaling and pool issues? Please explain further?

[martins]

IMHO BTC is totaly in control by the only few who can mine it, 51% atack very easy to do by a "Bank system" who hates the idea? think about a broked coin in few years! totaly centralized... the ALPHA idea is great but the time will tell us!

[qfdev]

Right now I don't think it can scale much bigger for several reasons. Namely the lack of "true" decentralization (as others have mentioned), but also the absence of even the most basic protections afforded to consumers in relation to securing wallets and mitigating fraud. There's still a long way to go in achieving wide-scale adoption...but the founding principles are sound and I think we'll see something akin to a Cambrian Explosion of new wrap around services for Bitcoin in the next 2-3 years which will make it a really useful currency.

[lnternet]

There is a chance the USD will drop in value 10-fold or more, which could cause BTC/USD to go up maybe squared that.

[tondiego]

IMHO it's not the right way to think of bitcoin in this fashion. Though I'm sure that 99.99% of BTC buyers/sellers nowadays are interested only in the value of BTC in FIAT currencies as they hope to exchange it back into FIAT when it will reach some "FIAT" value. But I believe it's just temporary hype and with wider adoption by merchants people will consider BTC a real currency and they will use it for buying stuff instead of trading it for some worthless FIAT currency which BTW will lose its value more and more in the future (for its nature). I think that selling BTC for FIAT is just waste of BTC.

The value of BTC is the stuff you can buy for it and how much do you value it for yourself. For most people that stuff is some bullcrap FIAT currency, but it will change, trust me  

[Bitcoinpro]

IMHO BTC is totaly in control by the only few who can mine it, 51% atack very easy to do by a "Bank system" who hates the idea? think about a broked coin in few years! totaly centralized... the ALPHA idea is great but the time will tell us!

That's why there is proof of stake coins.

[guybrushthreepwood]

$50 Billion?  $100 Billion?  $1 trillion? 

[mpattison]

I personally think it will eventually hit $100,000,000,000.

Will take some time though.

[the_poet]

I personally think it will eventually hit $100,000,000,000.

Will take some time though.

Don't you think it's a bit too optimistic?

[kokojie]

I personally think it will eventually hit $100,000,000,000.

Will take some time though.

Don't you think it's a bit too optimistic?

That is actually more of a when, not if.

[xinzark]

From what i see its going 1.5-2k , before the price could push up because the price are still low and the price now are about 1k percoin imagine how much it would nee to push 1.5k-2k and not to mention how many coin is there .

[jubalix]

IMHO it's not the right way to think of bitcoin in this fashion. Though I'm sure that 99.99% of BTC buyers/sellers nowadays are interested only in the value of BTC in FIAT currencies as they hope to exchange it back into FIAT when it will reach some "FIAT" value. But I believe it's just temporary hype and with wider adoption by merchants people will consider BTC a real currency and they will use it for buying stuff instead of trading it for some worthless FIAT currency which BTW will lose its value more and more in the future (for its nature). I think that selling BTC for FIAT is just waste of BTC.

The value of BTC is the stuff you can buy for it and how much do you value it for yourself. For most people that stuff is some bullcrap FIAT currency, but it will change, trust me  

Think of BTC as buying power, and the exchange back to Fiat as a stop gap to expressing that buying power.

The real value is in store of value and large value transfer, eg in 10-100 millions if not billions at will.

This is something that Fiat nor the current banking system can offer, in any form. They buying of nick nacks from amazon/ebay or coffee is low value. Look at thier market caps, versus the value of the property market, high value.

This is to some extent why I think Peercoin may be the better solution.

[Inkvor]

Unless gorv involve else it wont go any where

[BTCisthefuture]

I don't know about the exchange rate value of bitcoin.

But as far as adoption goes I could see bitcoin becoming as common as something like debit cards in the coming decades. Or at least something LIKE bitcoin.  The benefits it offers both consumers and merchants is to real for it not to expand IMO , unless of course gov's start cracing down on it.

[beefcoin]

...I'm thinking $7,000-10,000 per btc....

If the Fed will allow