“I think we’re going to see bitcoin hitting the $60,000 mark, but I also think we’re going to see bitcoin hitting the $5,000 mark,” Julian Hosp, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur and founder co-founder of crypto firm TenX, told CNBC. “The question is though, ‘Which one is it going to hit first?’”
A crash in the market would spell disaster, as transaction times have spiked and just 1,000 people own 40 percent of the global Bitcoin supply, giving them the power to pay higher fees and get their money out before others.
“The fact that this is our first global mania will make this the single most speculative bubble of our lifetimes,” Mike Novogratz, a billionaire that’s put 30 percent of his worth into cryptocurrency, told Fortune. “It wouldn’t be crazy if the crypto bubble hit $10 trillion, and that’s 20 times more than what it is today.”
However, pointing to evidence that more people want to buy in, Bitcoin expert Spencer Bogart said that he could see the cryptocurrency hitting $50,000 over the coming year. An October poll by Harris showed two percent of Americans own Bitcoin but 19 percent said they are likely to buy over the next five years, representing a tenfold increase in market size.
“I think we’ll have to force price higher,” Bogart said in comments reported by the Daily Express. “If you think about the supply side of that equation, the majority of Bitcoin is again locked down with long terms holders. So there’s not a lot of supply available. And meanwhile, we have this new uptick on the retail side.”
Whether these predictions prove accurate remains to be seen. After all, analysts at the end of 2016 predicted a price of around $1,500 and $3,000 a year from then. They were wrong then, and they could be wrong again.