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Bitcoin Price Will Hit $1 Million in 2020 Because Maths, Stupid: John McAfee

Last Updated March 4, 2021 2:44 PM
Harsh Chauhan
Last Updated March 4, 2021 2:44 PM

 
By CCN.com: John McAfee has been really bold when it comes to predicting the price of bitcoin, claiming that each unit of the cryptocurrency will be worth $1 million by the end of 2020.

The cybersecurity expert had first said in July 2017 that one bitcoin would be worth $500,000 by the end of 2020. If that didn’t happen, he promised that he’ll do something that none of us probably want to see.

But it looks like last year’s crypto bear market hasn’t injected any fear into McAfee’s soul that he might have to live up to his words. He is sticking to his million dollar prediction despite the volatility.

In one of his latest tweets, McAfee claims that it is “mathematically impossible” that one BTC will be less than $1 million “by the end of 2020.”

Is $1 million bitcoin possible?

Bitcoin had a terrible 2018, losing close to 80% of its value as the price of one unit of the cryptocurrency fell from more than $17,500 in January to just over $3,800 in December. That massive decline followed a terrific 2017 where the price of each bitcoin shot up from less than $1,000 to around $20,000.

bitcoin price
Bitcoin hit $20,000 at the end of 2017 | Source: TradingView.com

It was during that bullish run McAfee made his bold prediction of a million dollar BTC in December 2017.

McAfee had said that his model priced each bitcoin at $5,000 at the end of 2017. The cryptocurrency was trading at more than double of that level at that time, prompting McAfee to claim that $1 million was possible by the end of the decade.

McAfee’s latest tweet makes it clear that he is sticking to that prediction. But even the most ardent of crypto enthusiasts will take McAfee’s wild claim with a pinch of salt even if he backs it up with mathematical data.

Bitcoin is currently worth just over $5,200. So it will have to jump nearly 20,000 percent from its current levels to hit McAfee’s target in just over two years. And that’s assuming that there are no corrections along the way. People holding bitcoin right now will be prompted to cash in their gains if there is a rapid price rise in a short space of time.

If we go back to 2017, the price of bitcoin jumped just over  20 times in the span of a year before crashing down, though one executive believes that the $20,000 price was an anomaly.

So it won’t be surprising if the $1 million bitcoin prediction turns out to be a wild fantasy by the end of 2020. But that hasn’t stopped a few others from joining the bandwagon.

More calls for $1 million

According to Wences Casares, CEO of Xapo and a director at PayPal, bitcoin could be worth more than $1 million in the next 7 to 10 years. Casares states that there is at least a 50% chance that his opinion might succeed, so he is not as bullish as McAfee.

Casares’ prediction is driven by the success of bitcoin and how the cryptocurrency could be adopted globally in the long run. The lack of efficient and cost-effective financial services in certain geographies could drive the number of bitcoin users higher in the future.

Xapo CEO Wences Casares has a bullish prediction for bitcoin. | Source: Flickr/ TechCrunch

Casares observes that the bitcoin price can be calculated by multiplying the number of holders with $7,000. Assuming that this constant is maintained and there are 3 billion people owning bitcoin, each unit of the cryptocurrency will be worth $1 million as the supply of the cryptocurrency is fixed at 21 million units.

We are still way, way off that target as the number of active bitcoin users is reportedly  around 7 million. So, bitcoin adoption will have to grow rapidly in the future if the cryptocurrency is to hit that $1 million mark.

As such, if John McAfee wants his prediction to come true, he will need billions of people buying bitcoin in the space of just over two years. Otherwise, it might be “mathematically impossible” for bitcoin to hit $1 million by 2020.