An Australian bitcoiner is willing to take the odds of 1/141 on an $8.5 million bet with the hope of wining $1.2 billion if bitcoin’s price rises to $280,000 within just five years.
Tom Waterhouse, who appears to be a betting expert, publicly said last week:
“Big Bet: Well known Crypto expert has just requested a bet of $8.5m AUD to win $1.2bn that a Bitcoin will exceed the price of a Berkshire Hathaway share (c.$280k) by 2023. Have put him in touch with large syndicate – hope he can get set!”
Who the crypto expert is, remains unclear, but can bitcoin really reach $280,000? At just $60,000, bitcoin’s market cap would rise to a trillion. At $280,000, its market cap would stand at around $4 trillion.
That would be nearly as much as gold’s market cap which currently stands at $6 trillion, but it would not be even 5% of the global stocks market cap.
At $280,000 per bitcoin, America would still barely make a dent on its government debt, which currently stands at $21 trillion, even if the United States government held all the bitcoins in the world.
While where global debt is concerned, one bitcoin at $280,000 would be just a fraction of the $250 trillion owed in debt.
So the bet might not be that far fetched, especially when Ran NeuNer of CNBC’s Crypto Trader says:
“Until now institutional money could not get into Crypto. We had no custodians, regulatory clarity, trading systems etc.
These bridges are now built but now the market is not attractive. A few green candles & the institutions will get fomo & climb in! Oct-Feb 2017 look like a warm up.”
For one bitcoin to be worth a house sounds pretty far fetched, even considering their scarcity and their gold like nature which is coupled with a very easy means of exchange.
Yet the cryptocurrency is a very new asset class and can be useful as a hedge in a diversified portfolio. So who knows, this might be the most stupid bet in history or a genius bet.