Topic: Could One Bitcoin Come To Be Worth $1 Billion? (Read 3403 times)

Not only gox, in my country, at least 2 smaller exchanges stole peoples coins and money too. Big scandals around here, people now take Bitcoin for a scam. I cant blame them.

Hmm... I am willing to bet against him. I don't think that a 8x rise can occur in just 6 months, especially when the entire Bitcoin sector is decimated by the Gox scandal. 

I wouldn't bet against you.

Once one coin eclipses 1 million fiat is probably worthless

There is no use in predicting the time-frame and future exchange rates. They are simply unpredictable. If some of the big names (such as Ebay, Amazon, Paypal.etc) start to accept Bitcoin, then the exchange rate can shoot up to $4,000 mark in a few days.

if i'm not mistake the price should increase by 2.892*2.892 for that to happen. (which is rougly 8.3 times)

anyway $3.739 is not that far fetched. altough after next bull rush it will probably be in a bear market again somewhere between $2000 and $2500, for the price to be permanently above $4000 we probably need to wait till 2015.

If that happens, then the exchange rates should increase by close to 10 times.

1 Oz Gold = $ 1,293
1 BTC    = $ 450.00

For 2.892 oz. Gold = 1 BTC, the exchange rate should become:

1 BTC    = $ 3,739

1 Gold oz. = 2.892 BTC

My prediction in next 6 months:

2.892 oz. Gold = 1 BTC

The US dollar will be even worthless than the toilet paper, if something like this happens. I am not saying that it can never happen, as we are already having the examples of the Zimbabwean dollar and the Yugoslavian Dinara before us. 

Most people measure against USD because it is a widely used currency.
Once it collapses, 1 BTC will become worth 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 USD or close to infinite because everybody wants to get rid of their dollars because the only value they will have then is wipe your @*s or make a fire.
If it takes a few years, bitcoin will be able to survive on its own. On other words, you don't need a counter currency to value bitcoin. Bitcoin will be the currency then.
The value of a bitcoin then will be determined by the amount of gold or oil it will buy (or other commodities)
You've already seen the reverse correlation with gold when the december peak reached the price of 1 ounce of gold.
(well at least I *want* it to see ;-)

I always circled C. in my exams

I suppose bitcoin could be priced against gold, or oil.

It is habit, you normally measure it in relation to the currencies you are used to dealing with.

However, if Bitcoin became the global currency, prices would be in Bitcoin and you wouldn't measure Bitcoin in terms of currency X.

I guess we could use yen or something (like on huobi) 

Question - I understand now why most people tend to rate the value using USD but if the USD crashes and causes global instability, what currency would be used to distinguish bitcoin's actual value?

If bitcoin became the global currency and national currencies became a secondary alternative, how would wealth be determined without some measure of denomination?

I could have 10 btc each worth the equivalent of X USD but if USD isn't worth shit would we still use it to compare? If everyone had nothing but bitcoin across the world, by what measure would we use to determine what it's worth?


 Is there a reason it's USD and not Euro or other? Is it habit?

The only possible way a bitcoin could ever be worth even remotely close to 1 billion dollars is if the value of a dollar was reduced by a ridiculous amount. Like if a dollar were worth the equivalent of 1/100 of a cent today, and even that is extremely optimistic. That would be the equivalent of a bitcoin being worth $100,000 in today's money.

LOL Learn a new trendy phrase? 

I've seen that lately. Every rise in price is a pump and every dip is a dump.

LOLOLOL 

but when we predict the price of bitcoin we generally predict the price of bitcoin in relation to the current value of the dollar.

So when we say the price of bitcoin would in the future became $1.000.000 we mean that a single bitcoin would be approximatly buy you the same stuff you could buy with $1.000.000 today, even though by that time you'd need like $1.000.000.000.000.000.000.000 dollars to achieve the same due to inflation.

So a single bitcoin could become worth several trillions of dollars if you do not correct for inflation. But if you do correct for inflation than i'd say the maximum possible value would be about $10 million.

When people say "Bitcoin will be used as a store of value" or "Bitcoin will be used as a common medium of exchange," I generally nod my head even though I think the two are pretty hard to disentangle. However, I'm not convinced its really meaningful to say "if Bitcoin becomes a unit of account"... the fact that money is often said to have the property of being a unit of account does not automatically imply that it can be used more or less as a unit of account. An analogy would be to say that apples have the following properties: they are eaten raw, they are eaten in apple pies, and they have mass. Those are all true properties of apples (and one could enumerate more), and while apples can be more often eaten raw, or in pies, it doesn't make sense to say that their "mass" property dominates other uses.

Of course, by end of the year, Bitcoin will be worth $1 million, all you guys just get retired, life is good 

I think this will probably happen within the year.

Not everyone uses $$$ as a currency It is in IMF but still so are few other currencies.

Also article says 1million not 1 billion, that's not such a tiny difference.

Yellen

That is actually exactly what I pictured when I first read this...

Yes. There is no guarantee that what happened to the Zimbabwean dollar can't happen to the US dollar as well. As you said, Ben Bernanke seems to be in a competition to print as many bills as possible. Soon we can expect something similar to this:

this is the reverse of Dr' Evils 1 meeellion dollars right?

I could see a top end estimate at maybe $100,000 (even that being a pretty big stretch), but 1 billion is outrageous.

Best bet ever!
Since I met bitcoin, I never went to the casino anymore but spent it all on bitcoin.
Much better winning odds ;-)

Don't forget that the reason so much of the world is poor is because bad money means that non-elites can't save and accumulate capital to move into the middle class.

In a Bitcoin world where such monetary games couldn't happen, we should expect to see the gap in economic prosperity between the "developed" and "developing" countries narrow quite a bit.

That is just personal holdings. If you include the amount of money held by companies that number could be much higher.

Agree.  In terms of equivalent purchasing power to the dollar today, I think:

A.  Bitcoin becomes an accepted store-of-value alternative to gold:

    ~$10^5

B.  Bitcoin becomes a significant global medium of exchange:

   ~$10^6

C.  Bitcoin becomes the unit of account used globally and large organizations hold bitcoin reserves to conduct monetary policy (I don't expect Keynesians to go fully extinct):

   ~$10^7

In fairness, there is also possibility D:

D.  The entire experiment fails:

     $0

I think it's conceivable that 1 bitcoin in the future could have the same purchasing power that $1-10 million has today, with certain assumptions regarding what a world economy would look like with Bitcoin as a universal currency.

That's a good point.  The USD will collapse at some point in time.  The question is: Will that point in time be before or after bitcoin collapses?  If the answer is "before bitcoin," then the USD/BTC ratio will diverge to infinity.  If the answer is "after bitcoin," then the USD/BTC ratio will converge to zero.    

I would say so. We are at around 10.000 paper mark vs 1 gold mark I would say.

bonds are not to be counted twice.

dollars/bank notes are what the reserve prints out in exchange for a bond

imagine government hands the reserve a bond for $50k (small numbers, small minds) the reserve then prints $10x 5000 bank notes.

so you cant include bank notes and bonds as they are the same kettle of fish,, and you are also going to get into the whole debt hoo-haa..

so keeping it simple.. ignoring the government and banks, (debt and bonds)

if the PEOPLE drop the dollar then my maths does stand....

hmmmmmmmmm actually.

if the people dropped the dollar. then the whole 'value of the dollar would collapse. where for instance one loaf of bread would end up costing $1mill.....

so basically if a whole country droppd the dollar. then bitcoins would be worth trillions each as 1 trillion dollars would be the equivalent to a 3 bedroom house

Cant be that high. its not an endless source of energy

FTFY. It will happen this decade.

Are we in 1921-23 right now? Perhaps that peak-end/half crash was 2008..

firstly the OP needs to read the article. it talks about $1million not $1billion, but anyways..

there are 2 topics mentioning this so ill just post my message here too.

I recently researched that the average life savings of people is $44k
That is round figure of other countries converted to dollars. and averages of the rich and poor. all gathered from multiple statistics websites.

so now $44k x 7billion = 308,000,000,000,000

now 21 million bitcoins ever to exist

308Tril / 21mill = $14,666,666.66

so there we have it. if every single person in the whole world dropped their native currency and wanted bitcoin. then the max value of bitcoin is estimated at around $14.66mill

but w al know not everyone will want bitcoin for local, national, social, political reasons. so i think that maybe 1-5% (about the size of a country (currently we are at about 0.017%)).

and even with 1-5% wanting bitcoin they would probably not have every penny as bitcoin, they would diversify by having maybe 10% as ready to use local currency, and an even split between bitcoin gold and silver (atmost 30% bitcoin holdings on average)

yes there may be bitcoin fans that hold all 90% as bitcoin and 10% local currency(as time goes on less likely due to world demand)
yes there may be alot more holding 50-90% local currency with only 10% bitcoin.(as time goes on more likely due to world demand)

so now some context is given.

let say 3% population having 30% bitcoin holding

=210million people with $14k life savings in bitcoin = 2,940,000,000,000 (2.94Tril)
=2.94Tril / 21mill coins = $140,000 per bitcoin

and that is what i predict as the 'mass adopted year 2140 bitcoin price' $140,000

though i do prefer predictions like every 'of age'/adult (5billion) having atleast one months minimum wage salary ($1200) in bitcoin
=$6,000,000,000,000 bitcoin market cap
=$285,714.29 per bitcoin

all of this goes to show that even in context with semi/rough statistics to go by i dont think bitcoin will pass $1billion per coin. and at a stretch there is a SMALL chance it will pass $1million per coin

Of course 1 BTC could be worth $1 billion dollars.  The price of bitcoin when measured in USD could be anywhere between 0 and infinity.  If the USD collapsed at some point in the future, the price of bitcoin measured in dollars would follow a chart similar to the German Mark during the Weimar hyperinflation event (note that the curve went hyperbolic on a log scale):




A better question is: could 1 BTC every have the same purchasing power as $1 billion dollars has today?  In my opinion, this would not be possible even in the most outlandishly successful cases for bitcoin.  

If almost all of the bitcoins in circulations somehow disappeared it could happen but I highly doubt it.

Not gonna happen,  too many pumpers and dumpers.

I'm an optimist also but $1 billion? Lol i dont think so.

Too many pump and dumpers out there for BTC to even get back to $1000.

Look at Zimbabwe, it could happen. The US government has no intention of stopping the printing presses, inflation will catch up to them eventually.

Of course it is possible, when a loaf of bread costs you $1,000,000 a bitcoin will be valued infinite because you don't want to sell your bitcoins.

I think that would be impossible. But $10,000-$100,000 each... not impossible 

And make Satoshi the richest being on the planet, or group. They would literally have the ability to buy the planet.

....That would put the Market cap at 21 quadrillion dollars. Whoever wrote this article is a complete idiot.

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/051414/could-one-bitcoin-come-be-worth-1-billion-qa.asp