John McAfee, the creator of the McAfee antivirus and controversial crypto advocate, recently told Newsweek he still believes Bitcoin’s (BTC) price will hit $1 million by 2020.
Last year, McAfee boldly predicted the flagship cryptocurrency would “at least” be valued at $1 million and that central banks, in addition to the multi-trillion dollar traditional financial system, would “disappear.”
The eccentric crypto influencer, who has over 840,000 followers on Twitter, has argued many times that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies “can’t be stopped”, because to ban them, you’d have to shut down the internet. This, McAfee said, is impossible.
Bitcoin “Can’t Be Stopped”
Meanwhile, other crypto experts like Andreas Antonopoulos have also brought up the same point on several occasions: in order to ban crypto, you’d have to ban or shut down the internet.
Moreover, McAfee is so confident in his $1 million bitcoin price prediction that he would eat his own penis if he gets it wrong. Recently, while discussing cryptocurrencies and their potential impact on the world’s financial markets, the crypto enthusiast stood by his bet:
“I absolutely stand by the million-dollar prediction. It is still two and a half years away, in which two things will happen: bitcoin will continue to grow, and the U.S. dollar and other fiat currencies will devalue.”
Bitcoin Is The “Perfect” Unit Of Account
Notably, McAfee is not alone when it comes to making extremely bullish price predictions for the flagship cryptocurrency. Danial Daychopan, the CEO and founder of Plutus.it, a mobile app that allows users to conveniently make BTC payments, noted the “overall trend in the value of bitcoin is still heading north.”
According to Daychopan, “Bitcoin is the perfect unit of account, and unlike gold it’s the perfect unit of exchange.” However, the crypto entrepreneur’s positive outlook on the evolving digital currency industry isn’t shared by major Wall Street investment banks like Goldman Sachs, which recently stated in its economic-outlook report that cryptocurrencies will “not retain value”.
Investment advisors at Goldman Sachs argued that cryptos were neither a good unit of account, nor a reliable medium of exchange, nor a good store of value due to their high volatility and loosely regulated market.
Other major financial organizations like UBS and the Dutch central bank have also expressed similar views about cryptocurrencies. They’ve recently stated that digital currencies cannot function effectively as money and pose significant risks to investors due to the large number of scams associated with them.
Despite cryptocurrency prices falling sharply this year, after reaching record-level highs in December 2017 and January 2018, Daychopan doesn’t seem to be discouraged, as he stated:
We're going to see overall growth of the bitcoin price by the end of the year: I predict the value of bitcoin may reach £30,000, the year after £50,000.
Commenting on the “bubbles” the crypto market has experienced during its nearly 10 years of existence, Liina Laas-Billson, a veteran fintech professional, said, “Cryptocurrencies have gone through many ‘bubbles’ already in their short life cycle.”
Bitcoin’s Price Could Reach $80,000 By 2021
Laas-Billson added,
“The previous bitcoin boom resulted in the price crashing 80 percent from an all-time high of over $1000 per bitcoin. It took three years to climb back up to the previous price rate. By the end of 2017, the price of bitcoin skyrocketed to nearly $20,000. If we assume the same thing to happen in the future, its price could reach somewhere near $80,000 in 2021.”
While many digital currency market participants focus too much on the price, Meltem Demirors, the chief strategy officer of CoinShares, a crypto treasury management firm, stated recently that price must not be the only metric for cryptocurrencies.
Demirors further noted that other more important metrics are “the penetration of the total addressable market” for cryptos and their utilization. She also said that crypto-technology was “really immature” right now and it is hard to use, and because of this, its adoption and usage rate remain quite low.
Demirors added that it could take a long time before cryptos become mainstream, as this has been the case with “paradigm changing technologies” such as those developed by Amazon, Microsoft, and Intel.
