When John McAfee noted that he is willing to stake his name and up to $10 mln on a bet that the Bitcoin price will move above $500,000 within three years or he would "eat my d**k on national television." it appears like he meant Bitcoin as we all know it.
However, the security expert later clarified in a series of tweets after much questioning that he was referring to the proposed fork of the top digital currency by a group seen to be championed by Jihan Wu.
That is, as a respondent puts it, McAfee’s initial $500,000 prediction was not for Bitcoin but “a new altcoin that you and Jihan will mine?” to which he responded:
“Jihan and thousands of others. THE Bitcoin. Please... count the f**king votes!!”
To be precise, McAfee stated that based on his doctorate in point-set-topology - also called set-theoretic topology or general topology, which is the study of the generally abstract nature of continuity or "closeness" on spaces- the predicted Bitcoin price in three years will be $2,431,013. However, other mathematics systems put it at between $1.9 mln and $2.6 mln.
On the daily or weekly multiplier he used to arrive at the price over a three-year period, the CEO of MGT Capital Investments, which mines digital currencies, responds: “None. Point-set-topology does not rely on multipliers. It is too pure for such subjective. A multiplier is a human thought. It is not math.”
He also added that the projected price would develop over time based on an asymptotic curve. Additionally, he is not trying to stimulate as the price is of no concern to him as a miner, since he will always make 150 percent a year irrespective.
On Jihan’s fork
When asked if he thinks the ecosystem can reject malicious actors like the current Bitcoin Core team in time, he states that he is with Jihan, his friend “and the smartest man” he knows and believes that “the money will follow him (Jihan).”
He states:
“I'm hanging with Jihan. That's where the money is. And yes, he us (is) a great friend. And the smartest man I've ever met.”
He didn’t specify if he will mine either BTC-ABC (8mb blocks) or Btc1 (2mb/SW) or (1mb/SW) but rather chose to follow only Jihan's fork simply because “I'm not an idiot.” While he maintains that only Jihan's fork will have value, he notes that there will be a huge damage to the main Bitcoin and its price “may go back to $40.”
Within the given projected period, McAfee puts the Ethereum price at somewhere between a penny and $200,000.