- If you’re buying your first Bitcoin now, then we’ve got bad news for you – you’re not going to make it to a billion dollars
- Bitcoin needs a crazy big rise to make one Bitcoin worth a billion, so adjust your goals
- If you want to be a Bitcoin billionaire, start stacking as many sats as you can and aim for a max price of $200k!
If you find yourself flicking through crypto Twitter or Reddit, then chances are you will come across stories of people who bought Bitcoin back when it was less than $1. In the days of silk road, people would spend 50,000 Bitcoin to buy half a gram of coke, and that was considered normal for Bitcoin.
If instead you’d decided to hodl that Bitcoin rather than snort it at a party, then you’d be sitting on an obscene amount of money. But, will buying Bitcoin right now give you the same potential in 10 years’ time? Sorry to burst your bubble, but it’s highly improbable.
There Just Isn’t Enough Money
Ok, I’ll never say never, but I’m pretty sure that you’re never going to be a billionaire by buying one or two Bitcoin. Currently, Bitcoin is worth just over $11,000, and for just one Bitcoin to be worth a billion dollars, you need it to increase by 100,000,000x.
That’s more than it’s ever increased by since it was released in 2009, so good luck with that. Perhaps you’re after something more realistic, let’s say 1 million. That’s still a massive gain and there isn’t enough money in the world.
You see, there is a total of 21 million Bitcoin that will ever exist. If Bitcoin was to reach a million, let’s be a bit more realistic here, then its market cap would be $21,000,000,000,000 (that’s 21 trillion dollars).
To put that into perspective, there are only three countries in the world that have more than that wealth locked up amongst their citizens. That’s a crazy amount of money and it would make Bitcoin more valuable than the United Kingdom, Germany, France, India, Italy, Australia Canada and many more countries. It’s just simply unrealistic to see this ever happen.
Inflation Could Help Achieve Your Dreams
If inflation remains at current rates, it’s very unlikely that we’ll ever see Bitcoin worth $1 million per coin in our lifetimes. Perhaps as more and more gets lost and people want to become collectors of it in the distant future, but until then, your best hope is through inflation.
Just as we’ve seen in Venezuela and Zimbabwe, inflation of a fiat currency can make Bitcoin seem like it’s worth an insane amount. If the USA carries on printing more USD, then slowly the USD will weaken as a currency, meaning Bitcoin will be worth more and more, but your purchasing power will remain the same.
If the USA totally implodes and takes the USD down with it, we could see a load of bread worth $10,000, just like we’re seeing on the streets of Venezuela. But, in the real world, that USD could be worth £2.00 or €3.50. Just because you measure Bitcoin against a highly inflated currency doesn’t make it valuable at all.
So, while Bitcoin could make you look like a billionaire on paper, chances are those billions of dollars will just about cover your grocery shopping for the week.
What is Reasonable?
I really don’t want to be a party pooper, I love Bitcoin. But, I think we all need to start being a bit more realistic with price expectations. Honestly, in a world without inflation, who’s going to drop $500,000 on a single Bitcoin? Your average joe doesn’t have the financial resources to achieve this, meaning that it could become a currency for the super-rich.
On the other hand, if your average joes start selling their bags every time Bitcoin hits a new all-time high, we’re never going to see $100,000 in our lifetimes. Personally, I feel that $200,000 is perhaps a reasonable long-term maximum price for Bitcoin, unless, of course, inflation hits the USA. In this case, Bitcoin will be measured against a better currency, so it’s not even an issue.
The only way to become a millionaire from this point on is to buy more and more Bitcoin – owning just a single Bitcoin won’t cut it!
