Let the speculation game begin. On a serious note nobody can exact predict the prices year by year.
In short your guess is as good as mine or as good as anybody’s for that matter. Cryptocurrency doesn’t have a precedence. Cryptocurrency returns have broken many of the known models of returns. So it is my personal feeling that anybody who claims that they can make an exact prediction is lying.
Rather than making a prediction of what bitcoin price would be in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, I can say with confidence that prospects of bitcoin growth are very high. I don’t know if Bitcoin will reach 500k USD by 2020 but by 2030 it may not seem that impossible.
My reasons are two fold. The prospects of Bitcoin growth are very high. The value of USD will go down drastically in next 10 years or so. Both these things put together 1 BTC = 500k USD is pretty much possible in a decade.
Inspite of all the news and hungama around bitcoin still there are a lot of people who have not even heard of bitcoin. Out of all those people who have heard of bitcoin only a few have invested in bitcoin or used bitcoin. Just imaging what happens when all these people start using bitcoin or start investing in bitcoin.
Not many stores have started accepting bitcoin. This news that 260,000 stores in Japan will start accepting bitcoins (and other similar news) led to bull run for Bitcoin. Just imagine what happens when businesses in countries like India and China (37% of world population) start accepting bitcoins.
Subway starts accepting Bitcoin. Imagine what happens when more popular stores like these start accepting Bitcoin.
There are only a handful of websites that accept bitcoin. Imagine the day Amazon and Ebay starts accepting Bitcoin.
Most of the mutual funds and Investments funds have not even started investing in Bitcoin. Imagine the inflow of funds when they Funds start investing in Bitcoin.
Cryptocurrency(Bitcoin) is the first truly international currency.
Today most of the value of USD is because anybody can buy oil using USD. The most of the value of USD is because it is a globally accepted currency. The day the world feels that they have a credible alternative the price of USD tumble.
Once the countries start seeing Bitcoin as an alternative they will start moving their funds from USD reserves to Bitcoin mining. If you think this is a overstatement, check this out “Russia has the potential to reach up to 30 percent share in global cryptocurrency mining in the future," Marinichev said. Bitcoin mining has the potential to become individual contry’s pride and also having a say in International finance. The more countries joining the bandwagon, the stabler Bitcoin becomes.
Bitcoin is flexible. By standing strong on August 1st Bitcoin has proved that the community can reach consensus and improve for a course correction. Wherever a soft fork is not possible or is risky, there is always an alternative of a fork. Based on the output of the new currency Bitcoin can then decide which route to take.
All the value of the Bitcoin is just because of its utility as a currency. Once the usecases for bitcoin increases like that of Ether the value will go high further.
With these in mind I don’t mind if Bitcoin reaches 500k or not. I for sure know that prospects are good irrespective of the short term dips or the prophecies which predict the end of Bitcoin. So I will be a HODLer for the next few years at-least.