Could One Bitcoin Come To Be Worth $1 Billion?

[pummle]

I recently researched that the average life savings of people is $44k
That is round figure of other countries converted to dollars. and averages of the rich and poor. all gathered from multiple statistics websites.

so now $44k x 7billion = 308,000,000,000,000

now 21 million bitcoins ever to exist

308Tril / 21mill = $14,666,666.66

so there we have it. if every single person in the whole world dropped their native currency and wanted bitcoin. then the max value of bitcoin is estimated at around $14.66mill

That is just personal holdings. If you include the amount of money held by companies that number could be much higher.

[justusranvier]

That is just personal holdings. If you include the amount of money held by companies that number could be much higher.

Don't forget that the reason so much of the world is poor is because bad money means that non-elites can't save and accumulate capital to move into the middle class.

In a Bitcoin world where such monetary games couldn't happen, we should expect to see the gap in economic prosperity between the "developed" and "developing" countries narrow quite a bit.

[findftp]

I think it's conceivable that 1 bitcoin in the future could have the same purchasing power that $1-10 million has today, with certain assumptions regarding what a world economy would look like with Bitcoin as a universal currency.

Agree.  In terms of equivalent purchasing power to the dollar today, I think:

A.  Bitcoin becomes an accepted store-of-value alternative to gold:

    ~$10^5

B.  Bitcoin becomes a significant global medium of exchange:

   ~$10^6

C.  Bitcoin becomes the unit of account used globally and large organizations hold bitcoin reserves to conduct monetary policy (I don't expect Keynesians to go fully extinct):

   ~$10^7

In fairness, there is also possibility D:

D.  The entire experiment fails:

     $0

Best bet ever!
Since I met bitcoin, I never went to the casino anymore but spent it all on bitcoin.
Much better winning odds ;-)

[keithers]

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/051414/could-one-bitcoin-come-be-worth-1-billion-qa.asp

....That would put the Market cap at 21 quadrillion dollars. Whoever wrote this article is a complete idiot.

I could see a top end estimate at maybe $100,000 (even that being a pretty big stretch), but 1 billion is outrageous.

[jubalix]

this is the reverse of Dr' Evils 1 meeellion dollars right?

[bryant.coleman]

Look at Zimbabwe, it could happen. The US government has no intention of stopping the printing presses, inflation will catch up to them eventually.

Yes. There is no guarantee that what happened to the Zimbabwean dollar can't happen to the US dollar as well. As you said, Ben Bernanke seems to be in a competition to print as many bills as possible. Soon we can expect something similar to this:

[keithers]

this is the reverse of Dr' Evils 1 meeellion dollars right?

That is actually exactly what I pictured when I first read this...

[findftp]

Look at Zimbabwe, it could happen. The US government has no intention of stopping the printing presses, inflation will catch up to them eventually.

Yes. There is no guarantee that what happened to the Zimbabwean dollar can't happen to the US dollar as well. As you said, Ben Bernanke seems to be in a competition to print as many bills as possible. Soon we can expect something similar to this:

Yellen

[Fatpony]

Look at Zimbabwe, it could happen. The US government has no intention of stopping the printing presses, inflation will catch up to them eventually.

Not everyone uses $$$ as a currency It is in IMF but still so are few other currencies.

Also article says 1million not 1 billion, that's not such a tiny difference.

[Chalkbot]

I think this will probably happen within the year.

[UglyTroll]

Of course, by end of the year, Bitcoin will be worth $1 million, all you guys just get retired, life is good 

[chriswilmer]

I think it's conceivable that 1 bitcoin in the future could have the same purchasing power that $1-10 million has today, with certain assumptions regarding what a world economy would look like with Bitcoin as a universal currency.

Agree.  In terms of equivalent purchasing power to the dollar today, I think:

A.  Bitcoin becomes an accepted store-of-value alternative to gold:

    ~$10^5

B.  Bitcoin becomes a significant global medium of exchange:

   ~$10^6

C.  Bitcoin becomes the unit of account used globally and large organizations hold bitcoin reserves to conduct monetary policy (I don't expect Keynesians to go fully extinct):

   ~$10^7

In fairness, there is also possibility D:

D.  The entire experiment fails:

     $0

When people say "Bitcoin will be used as a store of value" or "Bitcoin will be used as a common medium of exchange," I generally nod my head even though I think the two are pretty hard to disentangle. However, I'm not convinced its really meaningful to say "if Bitcoin becomes a unit of account"... the fact that money is often said to have the property of being a unit of account does not automatically imply that it can be used more or less as a unit of account. An analogy would be to say that apples have the following properties: they are eaten raw, they are eaten in apple pies, and they have mass. Those are all true properties of apples (and one could enumerate more), and while apples can be more often eaten raw, or in pies, it doesn't make sense to say that their "mass" property dominates other uses.

[zimmah]

Look at Zimbabwe, it could happen. The US government has no intention of stopping the printing presses, inflation will catch up to them eventually.

Yes. There is no guarantee that what happened to the Zimbabwean dollar can't happen to the US dollar as well. As you said, Ben Bernanke seems to be in a competition to print as many bills as possible. Soon we can expect something similar to this:

but when we predict the price of bitcoin we generally predict the price of bitcoin in relation to the current value of the dollar.

So when we say the price of bitcoin would in the future became $1.000.000 we mean that a single bitcoin would be approximatly buy you the same stuff you could buy with $1.000.000 today, even though by that time you'd need like $1.000.000.000.000.000.000.000 dollars to achieve the same due to inflation.

So a single bitcoin could become worth several trillions of dollars if you do not correct for inflation. But if you do correct for inflation than i'd say the maximum possible value would be about $10 million.

[JimboToronto]

Too many pump and dumpers out there for BTC to even get back to $1000.

Not gonna happen,  too many pumpers and dumpers.

LOL Learn a new trendy phrase? 

I've seen that lately. Every rise in price is a pump and every dip is a dump.

LOLOLOL 

[K128kevin2]

The only possible way a bitcoin could ever be worth even remotely close to 1 billion dollars is if the value of a dollar was reduced by a ridiculous amount. Like if a dollar were worth the equivalent of 1/100 of a cent today, and even that is extremely optimistic. That would be the equivalent of a bitcoin being worth $100,000 in today's money.

[serenitys]

Question - I understand now why most people tend to rate the value using USD but if the USD crashes and causes global instability, what currency would be used to distinguish bitcoin's actual value?

If bitcoin became the global currency and national currencies became a secondary alternative, how would wealth be determined without some measure of denomination?

I could have 10 btc each worth the equivalent of X USD but if USD isn't worth shit would we still use it to compare? If everyone had nothing but bitcoin across the world, by what measure would we use to determine what it's worth?


 Is there a reason it's USD and not Euro or other? Is it habit?

[bitcoinsrus]

Question - I understand now why most people tend to rate the value using USD but if the USD crashes and causes global instability, what currency would be used to distinguish bitcoin's actual value?

If bitcoin became the global currency and national currencies became a secondary alternative, how would wealth be determined without some measure of denomination?

I could have 10 btc each worth the equivalent of X USD but if USD isn't worth shit would we still use it to compare? If everyone had nothing but bitcoin across the world, by what measure would we use to determine what it's worth?


 Is there a reason it's USD and not Euro or other? Is it habit?

I guess we could use yen or something (like on huobi) 

[Pepin]

Question - I understand now why most people tend to rate the value using USD but if the USD crashes and causes global instability, what currency would be used to distinguish bitcoin's actual value?

If bitcoin became the global currency and national currencies became a secondary alternative, how would wealth be determined without some measure of denomination?

I could have 10 btc each worth the equivalent of X USD but if USD isn't worth shit would we still use it to compare? If everyone had nothing but bitcoin across the world, by what measure would we use to determine what it's worth?


 Is there a reason it's USD and not Euro or other? Is it habit?

It is habit, you normally measure it in relation to the currencies you are used to dealing with.

However, if Bitcoin became the global currency, prices would be in Bitcoin and you wouldn't measure Bitcoin in terms of currency X.

[TERA]

I suppose bitcoin could be priced against gold, or oil.

[djangocoin]

I think it's conceivable that 1 bitcoin in the future could have the same purchasing power that $1-10 million has today, with certain assumptions regarding what a world economy would look like with Bitcoin as a universal currency.

Agree.  In terms of equivalent purchasing power to the dollar today, I think:

A.  Bitcoin becomes an accepted store-of-value alternative to gold:

    ~$10^5

B.  Bitcoin becomes a significant global medium of exchange:

   ~$10^6

C.  Bitcoin becomes the unit of account used globally and large organizations hold bitcoin reserves to conduct monetary policy (I don't expect Keynesians to go fully extinct):

   ~$10^7

In fairness, there is also possibility D:

D.  The entire experiment fails:

     $0

I always circled C. in my exams