Bitcoin Can Reach $10M In 9 Years But More Sidechains Needed: Blockstream CEO
Blockstream CEO Adam Back believes the price of Bitcoin (BTC) could reach $10 million by the end of the sixth halving in 2032, as long as Bitcoin layer-2 technology and wallet infrastructure improves.
In a Twitter thread from February 12, Back, one of the contributors to Bitcoin core explains to his 509,000 followers in which case Hal Finney’s $10 million BTC bid could come true.
He noted that BTC has doubled in price year-on-year on average since 2013 and explained that if this trend continues, the BTC price will reach $10 million along with a market cap of $200 trillion in about nine years.
However, Back said that for this figure to be reached, improvements in Bitcoin layer-2 technologies and wallet infrastructure must be fast-tracked to allow time for these innovations to scale:
“I think things will get ‘interesting’ in the next two halvings. and fast, we don’t have much time to scale technology. we need a place for the next billion users to own their own UTXO, their own keys, with censorship-resistant cold storage. without compromising the main chain’s security.”
Back said that “probably means sidechains/drivechains as a trade-off. more lightning optimization […] we don’t have much time as technology takes time to mature, wallets, interoperability, integration.”
Responding to one comment, Back said that he believes that Bitcoin adoption has not reached the bottom of the S-curve yet, as only 1-2% of the world’s population has taken advantage of Bitcoin. He predicts that more investors will start “stacking” BTC in coolers:
“given volatility, I think #bitcoin could overshoot wildly and hit one of those $100-300 trillion market caps, correct and then regain more even usage over time. I suspect people with average entry points, relative to current price, won’t have a lot of incentive to sell in size.”
The CEO explained that part of the next wave of adoption could come from what he describes as “hyperbitcoinization spurs” – where people in hyperinflationary environments will “rush” to bitcoin:
Related: Blockstream CEO Adam Back talks Bitcoin over a game of Jenga
But in response to another comment, Back also admitted that “we’ve completely failed to fund bitcoin” so far. The cypherpunk suggested that Bitcoin could be used in mortgages where real estate is used as collateral and Bitcoin as the interest:
“The market for bitcoin native financialization is immature, almost untouched. bitcoin structured products, mortgages backed by real estate but interest guaranteed by BTC, other products make bitcoin easier to use for more people, and match risk profiles. which creates more growth.”
Back added that to approach $10 million, BTC would also need to “displace” a significant proportion of stocks of value premiums in bond, real estate, gold and equity portfolios.
BTC is currently priced at $21,800.
