It started with a tweet
John McAfee made a bet on July 17th 2017: One single Bitcoin would be worth $ 500,000.00 in three years. The closing price according to CoinDesk was $ 2,244.265 that day. He later revised his bet and predicted $ 1 million by the end of 2020.
The math behind it
Is this really possible? Bitcoin needs to grow at a rate of 0.4840957034999999 % per day. That is the red line on the above chart. As long as the blue line is above the red line, we are on target. Hover over the chart to get daily prices.
Compared to the enormous price changes, half a percent does not sound like much to you? This is the magic of exponential growth.
Grab a calculator and try it yourself: