What is the price at which Bitcoins will top out at, and why?
Derrick Predictions for the future value of bitcoin vary based on who makes the estimate. According to Jeremy Liew, a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, bitcoin could reach $500,000 per coin in 2030. According to the June 2020 Crypto Research Report, the cryptocurrency could go over $397,000 by 2030.
The currency has seen some major rallies and crashes since then. Interest in bitcoin is surging in 2020 as it has regained its losses and pushed past its previous all-time high. Bitcoin has now surpassed its last all-time high of $19,783 and has pushed to over $23,000 as of Dec. 17, 2020. There are currently more than 18.5 million Bitcoins in circulation and it now has a market capitalization of over $428 billion.
Bitcoin History
really started to take off in 2013. The digital currency began the year trading at around $13.50 per bitcoin. The price rallied in early April 2013, briefly reaching a height of over $220 before dropping back down to around $70 by mid-April. This was the first real rally and associated crash for the currency.
Bitcoin began to rally in October and November of 2013. The currency traded at around $100 in early October and topped at around $195 by the end of the month. In November, the price went from around $200 to over $1,075 by the end of the month.6 The rally was caused by new bitcoin exchanges and miners in China entering the marketplace. This was the same period when the Mt. Gox exchange was operating. Mt. Gox was involved in around 70% of all bitcoin transactions.
The price began to get very volatile after reaching these highs. Rumors of a lack of security through Mt. Gox, as well as poor management, made the market nervous. People had problems withdrawing their money from the exchange. The price reached a high of $1,079 on Dec. 4, 2013. This fell to around $760 by December 7, a drop of around 29% over a couple of days.
Trading stabilized to some degree to around $920 in January 2014. However, there was another major crash in early February, around the time the Mt. Gox exchange filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan. Bitcoin was trading at around $850 on February 4, but it cratered to around $580 by February 16—a decline of around 32%. The price then fell into a slower and more gradual decline. The currency was trading at around $600 in the middle of July 2014. It eroded to around $315 at the beginning of 2015.
The price stabilized to some extent during the summer of 2015. However, early November saw another massive spike. The currency went from around $275 on October 23 to a brief close of about $460 on November 4 on certain exchanges. The currency sold off somewhat and traded around $360 at the end of November 2015. Through 2016 Bitcoin steadily rose, breaking through $1,000 in early 2017.