Bitcoin

Predicting How High Bitcoin Will Rise

September 4, 2019

By Team Basil Zaff

Bitcoin is an interesting topic and that’s because there are endless possibilities when it comes to the cryptocurrency. Many actually wonder how high Bitcoin will go, if it will ever crash and hit rock bottom or if it will ever decrease in increments. Some simply wonder why Bitcoin rises and what makes in increase. If you’ve ever wondered all of these things about Bitcoin, then I’m here to explain it all to you! I’ve created this guide to help you better understand the dynamics of Bitcoin and what makes it rise and fall.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through the following:

Why the current Bitcoin price is where it is today.
How high it can go in the future.
The many scalability solutions that developers offer when working on Bitcoin.
to answer what would make Bitcoin crash, while coming up with factors that could also make it rise.
My own personal opinions about how high Bitcoin will go.

At the end of this guide, you’ll have a better understanding of how to comprehend all the price predictions you’ll read about on the web. I’ll also help you better understand what makes Bitcoin so valuable in the first place. I love talking about Bitcoin and I have lots to explain…

Let’s dive into how much Bitcoin can go!

Modern Day Bitcoin

Before we look at how high Bitcoin can go, we need to first understand Bitcoin’s current situation. For those that don’t know,

Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin. What’s great about it is that it’s decentralized and no one really owns it. Bitcoin is just a database or blockchain that’s stored and updated by various computer networks. The computers are “miners” and they make sure that all the transactions follow the rules of the network. The only way to make changes is to convince enough of the miners to do so, which is why it’s so hard to change Bitcoins.

The Performance of Bitcoin
One of the best qualities about Bitcoin is that there’s a fixed supply. Since it’s a very small fixed supply of about 21 million coins, those buying and selling it have a big impact on its price. These buying and selling events are a bit exaggerated when it comes to Bitcoin than other cryptocurrencies since they are considered to be a new asset class. The future of Bitcoin is always unknown. Who know if a huge country will either embrace it or make it illegal. This translates to the fact that more people react to any news event and that will have an impact on its price.

Back in 2017, there was nothing but good new when it came to Bitcoin. That year had many cryptocurrencies gaining in popularity across the globe and this influenced many to buy. Although there were some dips in price, the trajectory was good that year.

During that year, the price for Bitcoin went from just under $1,000 on January 1 and went up to about $20,000 by December. That makes you wonder, how high will Bitcoin go?

The majority of these gains came in the last few months of 2017, which came because of software upgrades. Fear of missing out was what made Bitcoin increase in price at the end of the year.
But since the increase was run by inexperienced buyers and investors, things got bad when the bubble finally burst at about $20,000. The previous resistance point was $10,000 and that price struggled to get past that mark a few times before.

But the general thought was that Bitcoin’s price would still rise and would be driven by an influx of “institutional funds” that were made possible by the launch of feature contracts by the CME Group and the CBOE that was constantly in the new. But the money didn’t flow into the market as many had wanted and hoped would.

The Crash Of Bitcoin
When things started looking bad, novice investors that first poured lots of money into Bitcoin now wanted to sell. However, they didn’t realize exactly what they bought into and they didn’t understand the central value proposition of it. They couldn’t really comprehend that it was a permission-less system of value transfer that wasn’t controlled by any one entity and didn’t have governments meddling in its transactions. Of course, they sold fast.

The price started to decline rapidly as more novice investors started fearing that they could lose a few percentage points. They wanted to get rich quick and their dream faded. So instead of talking about how high Bitcoin will go, people started talking about how low it would go instead. Factor in that they didn’t even know how to store it correctly, novice investors were selling their holding at the first sign of failure. Since the Bitcoin market is small across the globe, it’s a very volatile asset naturally. When the market is overbought with tons of novice investor money, the volatility just increased even more.

The Evolution Of Usability For Bitcoin
Every year, Bitcoin becomes more usable. Bitcoin has come a long way since its humble beginnings when they were used to pay for cryptography software on forums. Now, you can buy practically anything with Bitcoin online. There are many stores that will take Bitcoin, including Overstock and NewEgg. You can even purchase vacations from Expedia, gamble at online casinos and even buy real estate with it.

For everything else you want to by online you can use eGifter, which allows you to swap out various cryptocurrencices for gift cards to a variety of online stores like Amazon and more.

You can even ask to get paid using Bitcoin. Once way is to be an active poster on forums. There are some companies that pay you to add their ads in your signature area. There are tons of employers looking to pay using Bitcoin, too! Or you can simply advertise your rates in cryptocurrency.

How High Will Bitcoin Go?

Answering how high will Bitcoin go is tricky and depends on its eventual use case. If Bitcoin becomes more than just money of the web that some believe could happen, then it could easily go up and reach the trillions. In 2017, Invespcro reported that $2,195 trillion was spent online, which would give Bitcoin the same figure of market capitalization. This would make each Bitcoin coin worth more than $100 million. Since the money spent online always goes up each year, it can go way higher than this. It could happen in the text 10 years even!

Is Bitcoin Digital Gold?
It’s good to compare Bitcoin with gold when figuring out how high it will go. Many believe that it’s digital gold and id doesn’t matter if it’s only adopted for purchases. Those that see it as digital gold are hoping that it will replace gold as earth’s best store of value. One of the believers that it’s digital gold is Steve Wozniak, Apple’s co-founder. And he also believes that there is no other cryptocurrency as pure as Bitcoin because of its unique quality of censorship resistance and independence from governments and groups.

With only 21 million units on the planet, Bitcoin should theoretically hold better value than gold. Only a few people need to believe that it’s valuable. Gold is only valuable because the majority of people think it is. Bitcoin does have unique properties that make it better than gold. It’s easier to store and transport. It’s also easier to hide if stored correctly. You can’t confiscate it from a person.

The current market capitalization of all globe in the world is $7.05 trillion. If Bitcoin claimed this best store of value like gold, each of the 21 million coins would be worth more than a third of a million dollars. Steve Wozniak also talks about Bitcoin as currency of the Internet, which would put its value higher than previous examples of how high Bitcoin can potentially go.

Problems That Arise With Bitcoin
If Bitcoin were to get the role of a global store of value, it would actually need a large shift in attitudes of everyone on Earth. It could definitely work, but it’ll take some time and a few generations to actually happen. But in order for Bitcoin to become the currency of the web, there are a few issues and problems with its design.

Right now, blockchains associated with Bitcoin are designed for security and not speed. Many new cryptocurrencies are faster than Bitcoin. Plus, its developers haven’t really done anything to lessen he security of the original design.
Bitcoin was created to be censorship resistant and nearly impossible to try and attack or hack. And when it comes to this aspect, Bitcoin is amazing, which is why it’s so great for the role of store of value.

But Bitcoin isn’t that great as performing as a medium of exchange for online purchases (or real-world ones for that matter). Right now, it takes anwwhere from 10 to 20 minutes for a transaction to be completed. The network has risen in popularity that transactions have become very expensive and that’s because each lock can only process a limited amount of transactions.

If there are too many, the miner creating the black will include the highest transaction fees, You obviously can’t wait around at a store for 20 minutes to ensure that the payment wen through, which is why it would need to be faster. But some of the most skilled blockchain developers are already working on making it faster, with one of them being Lightning Network.

The Lightning Network
Blockstream is a company of developers and they’re working on a potential fix to the high transaction costs and waiting times when it comes to Bitcoin. Their solution is called the “Lightning Network.”

Their idea is that Bitcoin owners making reapeat transactions will be able to do it without having to update the blockchain. So this payment channel will bounce around the transaction until on of the parties settle the channel. Once it’s settled, the network will figure out what’ owed and to who. The fee will be small, unlike the higher transactions fees of today’s blockchain transactions. If successful, the Lightning Network could translate to micropayments on the Bitcoin network. This will only increase the value of all the coins. If it works, the answer of “how high will Bitcoin will go,” will be greater than ever!

SegWit Software Update
The last major update to the network was called SegWit. It works by taking some of the data out of each transaction, which then talks up less space on the blockchain. This upgrade happened last August and it’s as secure as the original network, but only now, more fit into each block than before. The update essentially doubled the capacity of the network, meaning faster transactions, but not as fast as needed to be used daily. The update and the bliss after it was released were actually factors behind the 2017 Bitcoin bull run that transformed into a huge speculative bubble. So if the Lightning Network does work out, it might cause another bull run or it could not be anything! But it could definitely drive up the price of Bitcoin higher in the short-term.

Will Bitcoin Ever Crash?
Many believe that Bitcoin can crash, but very few of these people have a real understanding of what Bitcoin is. However, there are others that think that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a whole can actually fail. Prominent figures like Warren Buffet, Jamie Dimon and Charlie Munger have all argued against Bitcoin’s pricing. Buffet has publicly stated that he feels that Bitcoin is “rat poison squared,” while Charlie Munger thinks it’s a “scum-ball activity.” Jamie Dimon considers Bitcoin to be a “fraud.” But all of these figures are highly associated with global finance so their thoughts on Bitcoin are biased. That’s because Bitcoin doesn’t need financial entitles to work. More than likely, their comments are coming from naivety about the growing opinions of central banks and how people hate them Or even fear as they try to persuade people away from what could be a revolutionary innovation in the finance world.

Other Crypto Fans Call For Lower Bitcoin Prices
Usually, those that want lower Bitcoin pirces are actually backers of other cyptocurrencies. Many of these voices got interested in digital currencies in 2017 and discovered that there were lots of options on the market. But they blindly believed that all digital currencies were the same, as well as their transaction times. These people didn’t know anything about game theory or all about the security measures needed to have a successful global currency using blockchain technology. They just think of Bitcoin as old news and have a different digital currency they back. But then they rarely back their opinion and only talk about the more transactions their favored digital currency can do than Bitcoin. They forget about Bitcoin’s other strong points, which are censorship resistance and decentralization.

So How Much Will Bitcoin Increase?
Although there might be a lot of naysayers when it comes to Bitcoin, there are lots more pro- Bitcoiners and they usually have a more tech-based background. These minds really understand the commodity that Bitcoin is in such a way that any haters could never do. One of the highest calls for Bitcoin comes from John McAfee, who is a pioneer in the anti-virus software industry. But over the years, he’s become a cryptocurrency guru and makes price predictions about digital currencies. But he’s probably known best for making price call for Bitcoin.

He said that he thought Bitcoin could easily reach half a million by the year 2020. He was so confident that this could happen that he made a huge bet on it. He said if Bitcoin didn’t reach that price by 2020, then he’d east his own manhood on live TV! He then upped his own bet in November 2017, by adding that Bitcoin would reach $1 million in the same time frame (keeping the forfeit for being wrong the same).

Another notable Bitcoin bull is Alexis Ohanian and he also has a tech background. He is the founder of Reddit, a social media forum. He’s since moved into the investment sphere and looks to blockchain projects for having the most potential. He also thinks that Bitcoin will go higher than the 2017 all-time increase and stated this in May 2018. Tom Lee is another Bitcoin believer and he’s known for making some serious investments given he’s a JPMorgan strategist. He said that Bitcoin will as high as $64,000 by the end of 2019.

My Thoughts On How High Bitcoin Will Go
Now that I’ve covered on what other speculate when it comes to how high Bitcoin can go, it’s my turn to give my own opinion. First, I want to make one thing clear: I’m not giving you investment advice at all. As with any other investment, you’ll want to make sure that you do your research so that you fully understand how it all works.
So lets consider the question of how high Bitcoin will go. There is surely a lot going for this popular digital asset, that’s for sure. It’s very useful for payments and for sending money anywhere in the world in minutes without having to go through any financial institution. But the most important aspects of Bitcoin is its censorship resistance, its limited number and permission-less nature. All of these benefits give it a unique position amongst the other 1,500 digital assets that are listed on Coinmarketcap.

Let’s look at why each of these benefits are important:

Censorship resistance – Changing the network rules of Bitcoin is extremely hard to do. It can only be done if the majority of miners come up with a good idea and get that voted in. This means that no governments can control it. There is no central authority, so no one can cheat the system.
Permission-less – Just like no once can change the rules, no one can try to stop anyone on the web from using it. It provides banking services to those that don’t have access to them.
Limited in reach – There is a limited supply of Bitcoins available out there. So if you buy into it, the price would quickly reach expensive levels because that’s what happens with something is rare and is in high demand.

Conclusion
So that’s all I have for inquiring minds wondering how high Bitcoin will go. I hope that you’ve found this guide educational and informative. If you wan to go deeper into Bitcoin predictions, you can see a complete guide to it here. But before I go, let’s do a quick recap about what was presented:

We went over how Bitcoin pricing has performed over the years
What makes Bitcoin so special
Some ideas about Bitcoin scaling
Some views from those who are opposed to Bitcoin and views from those who think it’ll only continue to increase
My own opinions to how high Bitcoin will go.

So now you know the answers to the questions: