Crytocurrency enthusiast John McAfee is advocating that those bullish on bitcoin stay the course and continue to hold on to the digital asset, despite a downturn over the weekend that saw it shed nearly half of its value from its December peak.
On Dec. 25, McAfee, who founded the eponymous virus-protection software company, said: “Bitcoin is still the crypto giant. It is at a low price, and will never be cheaper,” he wrote on Twitter. “It will be ten times this price in 2018. Remember — it has the lowest circulating supply of any coin,” he said.
He also attempted to address some key criticisms of using bitcoin BT, +0.38% — notably the high costs and slow speeds associated with processing transactions, that have given rise to splits in bitcoin, including Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash:
McAfee has been among the more vocal supporters of bitcoin, predicting that the world’s most prominent cybercurrency would see a single unit hit a value of $1 million by 2020, doubling down on an earlier bet that a single bitcoin would be worth $500,000 over the same time.
In recent trade, bitcoin was attempting to mount a modest rebound, trading around $16,000 in the spot market, after seeing its value tumble by more than a third since hitting an all-time high on Dec.17 near $20,000. At its lows, the asset plunged by about 45%.
Overall, bitcoin’s price has climbed more than 1,550% so far in 2017.
In futures trade, both bitcoin futures trading on the CME Group Inc. CME, +0.35% and those on the Cboe Global Markets Inc. CBOE, +0.58% were trading in positive territory above $15,600, up by more than 10%, according to FactSet data.