This July, software grandee John McAfee donned the fool’s cap…
and brought down roars of laughter upon his head…
This bedlamite actually predicted bitcoin would reach $500,000
by the end of 2020.
$500,000!
His forecast was rooted in the lunatic assumption that bitcoin would
close 2017 at $5,000.
Thirty days remain in 2017.
And McAfee’s $5,000 bitcoin is miles off course.
For today, bitcoin trades not for $5,000… but $10,665.
Has the supposedly delirious McAfee undervalued bitcoin 50%?
And might bitcoin be worth not $500,000 by the close of 2020…
but $1 million?
Preposterous questions, we admit.
But we live in preposterous times... and are asked to believe preposterous things.
That deficits don’t matter, for example… that today’s stock prices are justified by fundamentals…
that the true unemployment rate is 4.1%.
Or that Janet Yellen is fun at parties.
Why is $1 million bitcoin any less plausible?
Here madman McAfee rises in defense of his claims:
When I predicted bitcoin at $500,000 by the end of 2020, it used a model
that predicted $5,000 at the end of 2017.
BTC has accelerated much faster than my model assumptions.
And here he fits himself for the straitjacket:
I now predict bitcoin at $1 million by the end of 2020.
McAfee is so confident in his $1 million forecast he’s placed what
we can only call a high-stakes wager upon it.
To repeat it in these pages would run afoul of our strict Presbyterian standard.
Let us simply state that he’s putting his… “manhood” on the line.
But could McAfee be right?
Could $1 million bitcoin be three years off?
Bitcoin ended 2014 at $307.
Three years later, it’s $10,665 — over 30 times higher.
Why can’t it rise another 30 times in three years? Or more?
Bitcoin was treated to last rites at $200… $1,000… $3,000… $10,000.
Each time it’s stormed from its death bed with defiant yells
and obscene gestures for the mortician.
Why should this time be different?
Perhaps that’s true, you say.
But, comes your objection:
Even if bitcoin increases another 30 times from today’s $10,000…
that only means $300,000 bitcoin by the end of 2020.
$300,000 is handsome — but not $1 million.
Ah, but McAfee’s formula involves a complex algorithm.
The price increases increase at an increasing rate as bitcoin use increases.
$1 million bitcoin may stagger your sensibilities —
if you do not own bitcoin today, that is.
But James Altucher is a former hedge fund manager who knows the
color and the business of money.
He’s also a brainy computer programmer who’s penetrated the
technical riddles of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.
And James agrees with McAfee that $1 million bitcoin by 2020 is possible:
"I'll say $1 million by 2020 as well, easily," James told CNBC this Wednesday.
Easily — did you catch that?
How does bitcoin travel the impossible path from $10,000 to $1 million, James?
There are 15 million millionaires around the world.
All their financial advisers are going to say, “
Hey, buy a bitcoin. You need some exposure.”
There’s justice here.
The cryptocurrency market remains exceedingly slim despite the screaming headlines.
As ARS Technica confirms, “Few people own any bitcoins at all.”
If bitcoin finally seduces mainstream finance, the royal road to $1 million may open as the money floods in.
But put $1 million bitcoin to one side for the moment.
James believes the cryptocurrency market overall will be worth a cosmic $200 trillion one day.
Perhaps at this point you wonder who’s sunk deeper in madness —
James Altucher or John McAfee.
But James builds his case on solid rock:
There is currently $200 trillion in cash, money and precious metals used as
currencies in the world.
Meanwhile, there’s only $200 billion in cryptocurrencies.
Cryptocurrencies are eventually replacing traditional currencies.
So that $200 billion will eventually rise to the level of currencies.
And probably sooner than we can imagine.
If James is half right — no 10% right — then owning the right cryptocurrencies today
is a passport to Elite Street.
“We’re on the ground floor of an enormous trend that’s going to change the world,”
declares James.
We admit... We haven’t the dimmest notion where bitcoin will trade in three years’ time.
Neither $1 million nor zero would drop our jaw.
But if bitcoin does go to $1 million… today’s $10,665
would be a bargain even at 10 times the price...