Bitcoin was created in early 2009. Since then, we’ve seen its price increase from Bitcoins to the cent (circa March 2010), all the way up to $8,700+. One of the stories that illustrate this growth best is that of two pizzas, which were bought for 10,000 Bitcoins, on May 22, 2010, by a Florida developer by the name of Laszlo Hanyecz. Those 10,000 Bitcoins (at $8,700 per bitcoin) would be worth over 87 million US dollars today, pitted against the $40 or so they were worth then.
Is there any limit to this growth, and if so, where? While nobody knows for sure, there are plenty of anti-Bitcoiners who see the market as a bubble, ready to pop and have Bitcoin’s price fizzle back to mere cents, and plenty of pro-Bitcoiners, or Bitcoin evangelists, who see little hinderance in Bitcoin growing up to 200 times its current price. Here are seven of those Bitcoin evangelists, and what they think Bitcoin will go on to be worth.
Wences Casares – $1,000,000 (by 2027)
Wences Casares is an Argentinian technology entrepreneur living in the US. He is the founder and CEO of Xapo, a Bitcoin wallet startup, and a board member at PayPal, among various other roles. Casares says he first found interest in Bitcoin because of high financial volatility in Argentina’s native currency, the Peso. The tech giant bought his first Bitcoins in 2011.
Casares believes that Bitcoin will hit $1 million sometime before 2027, speaking at the Consensus 2017 conference in New York. Even better, he believes that Bitcoin could hit one million dollars in as few as 5 years, saying on May 23, 2017, that the milestone will be reached “in 5-10 years”.
Chamath Palihapitiya – $1,000,000 (by 2037)
Chamath Palihapitiya, the founder of Social Capital and co-owner of the Golden State Warriors, started investing in Bitcoin in 2012. In 2013, he mentioned that he owns Bitcoin in his hedge fund, general fund, private account, and at one point he owned 5% of all Bitcoin in circulation.
Palihapitiya has predicted Bitcoin price will reach $100,000 in the next 3-4 years and in the next 20 years, it will be worth $1 million. He explained his prediction as based on the evaluation of Bitcoin as a store of value just like gold.
He said, “This thing has the potential to be comparable to the value of gold…This is a fantastic hedge and store of value against autocratic regimes and banking infrastructure that we know is corrosive to how the world needs to work properly”
John McAfee – $500,000 (by 2020)
John McAfee is the founder of McAfee Associates which launched first commercial antivirus software in the late 1980s. He recently founded MGT Capital, a company that mines various cryptocurrencies in and outside the United States. John got involved with Bitcoin because according to him it will eventually become ‘the standard for the world.’
McAfee recently made waves in the cryptocurrency world after claiming that each unit of Bitcoin would be worth half a million dollars by 2020. He did not stop there. He went on to predict that Bitcoin could even reach as much as $2.6 million in the same time frame. There is no way of knowing whether McAfee did this to get attention or if he actually means it. Only time will tell.
Jeremy Liew – $500,000 (by 2030)
Jeremy Liew is a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, famed as the first investor in the social media app Snapchat. Liew’s other investments include the multimedia company Beme, the listing service VarageSale, and the hardware wallet LedgerX. His net worth is estimated at north of $2 billion.
In an exchange with Business Insider, Liew said that the Bitcoin price can “realistically” reach $500,000 by 2030. Liew’s prediction was backed by Peter Smith, the CEO, and co-founder of Blockchain — the world’s most popular Bitcoin wallet. The estimate was made on May 4, 2017.
Roger Ver – $250,000 (no date)
Roger Ver is an early investor in Bitcoin and its related startups. Born in the US and now with citizenship in Saint Kitts and Nevis, Ver started his business career with a computer parts business, MemoryDealers.com. By early 2011, Ver had begun investing in Bitcoin, now with a portfolio including startups like Bitinstant, Ripple, Blockchain, Bitpay, and Kraken. He is sometimes nicknamed the “Bitcoin Jesus”.
In an interview Jeff Berwick, for The Dollar Vigilante blog, Roger Ver said in October 2015 that Bitcoin “could very easily be worth $2,500, or $25,000 per Bitcoin, or even $250,000 per Bitcoin”. Ver’s estimate is based on the principles of supply and demand, which he believes creates great potential for Bitcoin as a store of value.
Kay Van-Petersen – $100,000 (by 2027)
Kay Van-Petersen is an analyst at Saxo Bank, a Danish investment bank which specializes in online trading and investment. Based out of Singapore and with an MSc in Applied Economics & Finance from Copenhagen Business School, Van-Petersen is an active Twitter user with no fear of speculating on tough topics like the prices of cryptocurrencies.
Van-Petersen believes that Bitcoin will rise to $100,000 per unit by 2027, according to a feature by CNBC news published on May 31, 2017. As the man who successfully predicted Bitcoin’s flow up to $2,000 by 2017, Kay Van-Petersen’s most recent estimate, perhaps a little optimistic, suggests that Bitcoin would then account for 10% of the volume in the foreign exchange market.
Tai Lopez – $60,000 (mid-term)
Tai Lopez, a renowned investor and analyst, believes that if a small portion (1%) of the assets of millionaires globally is invested into Bitcoin in the upcoming months, the price of Bitcoin would justifiably be around $60,000.
Given that the adoption of Bitcoin as a store of value and a medium of exchange within the global finance market is increasing exponentially, $60,000 remains as a viable mid-term price target.
Ronnie Moas – $50,000 (2020)
Ronnie Moas is the founder and director of research at Standpoint Research, an equity research firm accounting for both traditional investments and new-time ones. Moas is an avid Twitter user and Wall Street analyst who has been featured on dozens of TV and radio interviews and holds an MBA in finance.
Moas projects that Bitcoin will reach a price of $50,000 by late 2020. He also believes that the market cap of all cryptocurrencies will burst up to a whopping $2 trillion (from the current $150 billion) within the next 10 years. Moas has also compared the wealth proposition of cryptocurrencies to that of the dot-com boom.
Masterluc – $40,000 to $110,000 (by 2019)
Masterluc is an anonymous Bitcoin trader, known for his impressive predictions in the price of Bitcoin. Most notable was his prediction of the end of the 2013 Bitcoin bubble, which was then followed by a bearish market for multiple years.
Masterluc sees Bitcoin reaching a price of between 40,000 and 110,000 US dollars by the end of this bull run, sharing his thoughts publicly on the TradingView platform. In his May 26th, 2017 post, the legendary trader said he expects the price to be reached sometime before 2019.
Mike Novogratz – $40,000 (by end of 2018)
After correctly predicting the $10,000 milestone, hedge fund manager Michael Novogratz thinks that Bitcoin price can go four times by the end of 2018 and cross $40,000. According to him, high demand from Asia and a limited supply of the cryptocurrency has lead to cryptocurrency’s exuberant growth.
Novogratz is starting a $500 million cryptocurrency hedge fund to invest in cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings, and related companies.
