$15 trillion in 10 years sounds like a realistic prediction to me. In that case, Bitcoin is likely to cost around $600k, and I don't think that's unfathomable.
Perhaps I should have clarified that while I believe the
overall digital currency market will hit $15 trillion, I think Bitcoin itself will only be a part of that--and probably not even the majority of it.
So my other prediction is this:
in five year's time, Bitcoin will be a minority of the total digital currency market cap (even though it may well be far higher in price than it is now).
If decentralization is not for you, you have a choice of almost every existing system in the world to choose from, surely the one truely decentralized system doesn't need to change for you to have "another" centralized institution. There's a bank down your street, use that.
Bank transactions, including credit card transactions require an exchange of personal information. Most consumers don't want that for small transactions (whereas they very much want this for large transactions so they can be protected by the government---this is a phenomenon I call
Anon Paradox--that people want anonymity for "small" money and personal identity for "big" money).
Did you do a public survey ? if not, then your claim has zero value.
My evidence is the way most people use crypto today, which is through an app or broker that stores their account centrally using their personal identity. Consumers are voting with their feet on this one. Whereas many here, brave people and early adopters, are content to hide their life savings in a proverbial floor safe, most people keep their life savings in a financial institution under their own name.
People who own substantial amounts of money want privacy. They don't want anyone, including government to know how much they've got. I did not make survey because it's written in history of banking, Swiss accounts back in the day and other safe haven places today are a proof that people value privacy the most when it comes to storing their wealth.
Yes, they want privacy, but you are talking about two kinds of "privacy" here, and they are very different:
1. Privacy from criminals, marketers, other citizens, the media, and their friends: this is the kind of privacy
everybody wants.
2. Privacy from their government such that they can safely engage in illegal activity: this is the kind of privacy that
very few people want.
While there is certainly a small (percentage-wise) market for people who want to evade their government, my thesis, based on, well,
the history of banking, is that most people don't want that kind of trouble--a "Swiss bank account" is almost synonymous with somebody doing shady things, which is why such accounts had never been more than 1% of the money stored in banks. 99% of people aren't interested in going up against their government.
And look, I get it, most here would say that those 99% of people are
wrong and that they really should fear their government, and so on. I voted for Ron Paul for president before many here were even alive. I get the ideology. But that's not the reality of the average developed-world consumer--but that consumer is the force that will get us to $15T. The "Swiss bank account" market is finite, and I think it's fair to say that it's saturated now. Growth is going to come from the mainstream, not doubling down on the fringes.
Where do you place those ardent bitcoiners from the developing world that currently makes up the whole bitcoin ecosystem today. Because for what it is not only the developed world that makes up that $1.5 trillion valued of digital currency in today's world.
You are absolutely right, and I probably used the wrong terminology here. Digital currency is a value for all consumers, no matter where they live.
Maybe the absence of control on bitcoin by the government is what you're referring referring to fighting the government, but when does making for an alternative becomes a fight?
Almost no product you use on the internet is "controlled by the government". If you use a VPN, it's controlled by the private VPN company, not the government.
What I mean by "fighting the government" is people who wish to
hide their money from the government should that government inquire into their finances. In other words, people who are interested in breaking the law in some fashion, usually for tax evasion.
Most people don't want to do that, and my thesis here is that the way we will get to $15T is by addressing the 90% of the market who just want to trade anonymously and safely with their fellow citizens and want to speculate on memes.
