$500,000 per Bitcoin, baby. The math behind it.

[btcguys]

So, in order to keep our power consumption under about 2% of world wide power production, we cannot/do not want the price to get to $500,000 before era 6, which is about 2033 or so.

$500k in 2033? I'll take that. I can be patient.

if this is the case then it is better than IRA plan lol

[JayJuanGee]

Yes, it will take a while to reach $50,000. Many years.

But it will hit $5000 within the next 6 months.

$5,000 in the next 6 months!? LOL. What planet are you living on?

i believe it will touch 10.000 but not to 500.000 k
and maybe need more year like 5 or 10 years again to touch it . because we know when diff gain price will gain. may

Even projections of $10k in 5 or 10 years is extremely optimistic and a very good investment.  Normal index fund stocks are usually projected to double in value in 10 to 12 years. So, if BTC is able to achieve another more than 10x appreciation in 5 to 10 years, those are very good value projections.

[JayJuanGee]

i believe it will touch 10.000 but not to 500.000 k
and maybe need more year like 5 or 10 years again to touch it . because we know when diff gain price will gain. may

As much as I hope I am wrong, I don't believe it will ever go that high...That would put too many people at an extremely wealthy level, and I don't think the government wants that to happen!

You may be correct with your instinct that there are status quo forces that do NOT want regular people getting rich and they do NOT want redistribution of wealth.  I would NOT place those suspicions on the government - b/c the government is merely a vehicle that can be used by the people or by the rich... a problem, is frequently the government gets co-opted by status quo wealthy forces... but suggesting "the government wants" is a way of misunderstanding the forces at play... b/c the government is NOT inheritantly bad.

Back to the substance of your comment:
There remain wealthy and status quo forces that do NOT appreciate some of the redistribution of wealth that has already taken place through bitcoin.  They do NOT have a choice , and they do NOT like it, but some redistribution of wealth has already taken place.  Some of the newly wealthy through BTC are going to be able to hang onto their wealth, but others are NOT so smart or sophisticated to realize how to hang onto their newly acquired wealth or are NOT sufficiently omnipotent to  know how to manage their newly acquired wealth.  NONETHELESS there remains considerable potential for further redistribution of wealth for those who enjoy sufficient foresight to recognize the potential of bitcoin and to continue to invest in bitcoin while there remains considerable potential upside. 

In this regard, bitcoin is democratic and open to all to invest at whatever portion of their income is possible and accordingly, there will be little choice of the status quo and additional wealth is going to be redistributed to people who are able to HODL BTC in the coming years.    Surely, there will be come wealthy that get on board and are able to manipulate the wealth distribution of BTC in their favor.. but still quite a few regular (and techy) people should be able to receive some of this BTC wealth redistribution... b/c I am thinking that it is still early days, and even if BTC does NOT go to $500K, it has a pretty decent chance to go to $10K and beyond in the fairly near future.... and the status quo financial institutions are likely NOT going to be able to stop it.. even though they will probably make some lame efforts to try to stop it.

[Giggs]

$500,000 per Bitcoin is a ridiculous prediction. Wont get anywhere near unless bitcoin goes fully mainstream.

[JayJuanGee]

$500,000 per Bitcoin is a ridiculous prediction. Wont get anywhere near unless bitcoin goes fully mainstream.

You are stating the obvious, and there is some kind of logical fallacy with your rational... (but I do NOT know the name for the logical fallacy.. NOT off the top of my head).

Even $50K per bitcoin is going to make BTC pretty mainstream, and $500K per bitcoin is even more mainstream (10x more).  You may be correct that $500K per bitcoin is a bit ridiculous to achieve - however, NOT for the reason that you stated b/c even at a much lower than $500k price, the assumption is that BTC becomes increasingly mainstream which causes it to increase in value (what people are willing to pay for it).

[californiaquail]

$500,000 per Bitcoin is a ridiculous prediction. Wont get anywhere near unless bitcoin goes fully mainstream.

Arguments here ?

Anyways, i'll continue. i've read tons of topics from 2013 that predicted a 5000 bitcoin for summer 2014.  
 It's quite sad, but i think the only way to achieve this, would be a second Cyprus bank run / government heist.
 Pretty sure if the euro or dollar collapses, maybe a 2008 like crisis, we could hit a 100k bitcoin in no time.

 Mainstream adoption will only come from an absence of choice, NOT enlighted decision ( thats us   ) in our case that absence of choice would be caused by a total collapse of trust in our financial system.
You can waste your breath and educate people to bitcoin for as long as you wish, they won't use it globally unless they HAVE to, mark my words.

[bitsmichel]

i believe it will touch 10.000 but not to 500.000 k
and maybe need more year like 5 or 10 years again to touch it . because we know when diff gain price will gain. may

As much as I hope I am wrong, I don't believe it will ever go that high...That would put too many people at an extremely wealthy level, and I don't think the government wants that to happen!

How so?  You do realize there's millions of millionaires already right?  The government cares about taxes.  They don't give 2 rat shits if you've got money or not.

no, governments care about control, they can print money out of thin air, for now.

yes but they can't print gold, silver or bitcoin. If they print too much it will become an valueless currency - and that has happened before in history.

[bigasic]

If it were to get to 500k per coin, we would be selling micro amounts of coin.

[X7]

We cannot/do not want to get to $500,000 per BTC any time soon.  Here is the math behind it:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=694401.0

If BTC were to go to $500,00 in this era it would cause a catastrophic mining bubble:

   $500,000 x 25 = $12,500,000 per block = $75,000,000 per hour

   $75 million per hour would drive the mining to attempt to use 675 GW.  This is about 30% of all the power generated on the planet.

So, in order to keep our power consumption under about 2% of world wide power production, we cannot/do not want the price to get to $500,000 before era 6, which is about 2033 or so.

Using my previously derived formula for the power consumption:

P = (6(50/2^e) + f)(x)(1 - g)/c [kW]

where:

x = exchange rate [USD/BTC]
e = era [0..32] (we are currently in era 1)
f = average fees per hour [BTC/hour]
c = cost of energy [USD/kWh]
g = average gross profit margin [unitless ratio]

we can look at the power consumption in each era assuming a price of $500,000 per BTC.

In order to make it simple I will make the following assumptions:

x = $500,000 per BTC
f = fees per hour will keep the coinbase above 6 BTC/hour (1 BTC/block) in all eras
c = $0.10 per kWh
g = 0.1 miner gross profit margin

Code:

     Original target      Subsidy    Est Fees  Power  % of total world
Era    starting year    BTC/block    BTC/hour     GW  power production
---  ---------------  -----------  ----------  -----  ----------------
  0             2009  50.00000000  0.00000000  1,350            58.41%
  1             2013  25.00000000  0.00000000    675            29.20%
  2             2017  12.50000000  0.00000000    337            14.60%
  3             2021   6.25000000  0.00000000    169             7.30%
  4             2025   3.12500000  0.00000000     84             3.65%
  5             2029   1.56250000  0.00000000     42             1.83%
  6             2033   0.78125000  1.31250000     27             1.17%
  7             2037   0.39062500  3.65625000     27             1.17%
  8             2041   0.19531250  4.82812500     27             1.17%
  9             2045   0.09765625  5.41406250     27             1.17%

It is silly to assume that by such a date we would not have much more efficient ways of powering this technology with the vast amount of money which IS being and WILL be poured into the infrastructure of maintaining this epic ecosystem.

2/10 for effort

[Anders]

I hope those who did the math included this:

"Combined with Moore's law, performance per watt would grow at roughly the same rate as transistor density, doubling every 1–2 years." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law#Other_formulations_and_similar_laws

[BurtW]

It is silly to assume that by such a date we would not have much more efficient ways of powering this technology with the vast amount of money which IS being and WILL be poured into the infrastructure of maintaining this epic ecosystem.

2/10 for effort

I hope those who did the math included this:

"Combined with Moore's law, performance per watt would grow at roughly the same rate as transistor density, doubling every 1–2 years." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law#Other_formulations_and_similar_laws

Neither one of you saw or understood that mining efficiency does not matter when calculating the total power consumption of the Bitcoin Network.

Efficiency only affects total hash rate and difficulty, not power consumption.

It is a given that mining hardware will become more efficient for the reasons you stated.  However, more efficient mining hardware means that for a given amount of power the network will just produce a larger hash rate.  When more efficient mining hardware hits the market miners will just buy more of it until they consume the same amount of power as before the more efficent mining hardware was on the market.

The total power consumed by the network is only bounded by the amount of money available in each block to spend on power.

[ironman80]

I  believe bitcoin has bright future (I must admit,I always loved science fiction movies)..You watched Star trek?...We all know about Einstain relativity...But in Star trek one believer invented warp drive (ability ship to fly faster than light speed)....I think being optimistic is very important in life,and bitcoin is our warp drive!...It will be hard the price of BTC to go "faster than light speed",but not immposible!...

[leex1528]

The government actually does care about how many wealthy people their are.  Also as of right now it isn't exactly easy to tax bitcoins..So they don't want everyone getting free money with them getting nothing

[hdbuck]

amen to OP

[onezerobit]

lets not get carried away.....even if that is possible, it is not gonna happen in less then a year.

[jonald_fyookball]

even if that is possible, it is not gonna happen in less then a year.

really?  thanks captain obvious 

[Houseman]

Yes, it will take a while to reach $50,000. Many years.

But it will hit $5000 within the next 6 months.

A sustained $5000/BTC price would drive mining to attempt to consume about 0.3% of world wide power production.  That is a lot, but at least is it possible.

Everyone will get their old miners back out and turn them on again ;-)

[Anders]

However, more efficient mining hardware means that for a given amount of power the network will just produce a larger hash rate.

That's what my quote implies. There will be more computing power in the future for the same amount of power consumption as today.

When more efficient mining hardware hits the market miners will just buy more of it until they consume the same amount of power as before the more efficent mining hardware was on the market.

Price/performance of computing roughly doubles every year. I'm not sure power consumption follows that same pace. The price is a combination of both the cost of the hardware and the cost of electricity (plus other factors). So I'm not sure the total power consumption of the Bitcoin miners together will remain constant over time.

The total power consumed by the network is only bounded by the amount of money available in each block to spend on power.

Electricity cost plus the cost for the hardware and real estate etc, all of that has to be taken into consideration together.

[Anders]

"The price at which he bought the rig is irrelevant to this decision. It’s a “sunk cost”." -- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=694401.0

I don't think that's true. The miners will continuously have to buy new hardware since the price/performance of computing power doubles every year. Old hardware has to be replaced. And in addition there are costs for bandwidth and for maintenance, administration, rent of buildings etc.

Only if the cost of electricity is much larger than all those other costs over time can the assumption in the quote be valid.

[littlewizard]

I think it is possible for this prediction, as long as the mass adoption of Bitcoin slowly advances.