Last year everyone was going bonkers for Bitcoin, and thats no surprise, seeing as how the number one cryptocurrency had an absolutely explosive price performance in 2017. Things have cooled off in 2018 as prices fell significantly, however many are still bullish about Bitcoins long-term potential.

To that end, the scarce, deflationary quality of Bitcoin makes it totally unlike traditional fiat currencies, which are usually prone to inflation and even hyperinflation in the worst of cases. That means as more investments pour into BTC, its price will likely continue to see upward pressure because there will be no supply response.

Think about how when the price of oil surges, more companies begin producing oil, which then increases the supply and acutely deflates the price of oil accordingly.

No similar supply response can never happen with bitcoins. There will never be more than ~21 million, and even contemporary estimations say more than 3 million BTC have been lost for good, making BTC considerably scarcer than many realize.

That means the BTC could potentially shoot up exponentially in future years. But how high?Lets take a look at some of the more prominent projections weve seen thrown around in recent days.

Once renowned for being a prominent Wall Street hedge fund manager, Mike Novogratz has now set his sights on the cryptocurrency space, and hes not turning back. Running the crypto-based Galaxy Investment Partners, Novogratz is betting big on the Bitcoin boom in general as his mid-term BTC price projection suggests.

Bitcoin could be at $40,000 at the end of 2018, Novogratz said. It easily could.

And for Novogratz, theres no confusion as to why that particular price point may end up really materializing. In a November 30th interview on Fox Business, Novogratz unabashedly declared that Bitcoin is going mainstream.

And Novogratz knows what mainstream and institutional looks like; he used to run a Goldman Sachs trading desk in Asia before becoming a hedge fund manager at Fortress. If he thinks the herd is coming, as it were, then we all best pay attention.

Going much more long-term, Novogratz said it was within the realm of possibility that the bitcoin market cap could one day reach the current market cap of gold, which is around a whopping $8 trillion USD.

If this reality were to materialize down the road, that would put each BTC around the $390,000 price point.

Firebrand Bitcoin pundit Max Keiser has never made his love for BTC and its potential a secret.

As such, youll commonly find him on Twitter making new price predictions based on the Bitcoin booms momentum.

For now, hes pegging his short-term bitcoin price target at $15,000. Thats a reasonable figure, to be sure, especially with BTCs parabolic price performance in Q3 and Q4 2017.

Beyond that, though, Keiser has his eye set on the impressive $100,000 BTC price milestone.

Love him or hate him, Adam Back is an OG cypherpunk whos made incalculable contributions to the cryptocurrency space as a whole. Theres a reason Satoshi Nakamoto reached out to Back (and Wei Dai) first in starting up Bitcoin.

In other words, Backs been around the block once or twice. He knows the ecosystem as well as anyone.

And its his opinion that the next major target for the bitcoin price to hit is $100,000, echoing Max Keisers aforementioned prediction.

In a recent tweet, Back even went as far to say that users should be careful selling bitcoin in 2018 because the price could rocket so acutely over the next 12 months that people wouldve made considerably more by just holding.

John McAfee is best known as the creator of the popular McAfee antivirus software. Hes also become a Bitcoin aficionado over the past several months, and he never hesitates to voice his opinions on the cryptocurrency craze accordingly.

And his opinions are exceedingly bullish, to say the least. McAfee was projecting $500,000 BTC in 2020 just a few weeks ago, but he modified his claim to be even more bold as bitcoins market surge has been moving faster than he anticipated.

Now, McAfee thinks $1 million per bitcoin will be reality by the end of 2020. Thats almost an unfathomable possibility at the moment, but maybe we havent seen anything yet. Especially if institutional interest keeps exploding.

But McAfee has even bolder ideas, to be sure. In an even newer Twitter exchange, McAfee explained that he believes the BTC price could reach into the billions one day.

Specifically, the tens of billions as he argues:

Thats certainly the most aggressive price prediction anyones made for BTC yet. But if that insane price materializes, McAfee will end up looking like even more of a madman genius than he already is.

Swedish Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge is a big proponent of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), going so far as to sarcastically call himself the CEO of Bitcoin Cash.

But that doesnt mean he doesnt respect the beast that BTC is and could be.

Bitcoin] can easily go to more than $1 million per bitcoin. Falkvinge said during a recent interview. But thats just Falkvinges conservative estimate. Hes actually more bullish than that, asserting that BTC can go as high as $5 million:

If cryptocurrency fulfills its promise, and theres no indication it wouldnt, then the equivalent of one bitcoin needs to be in the $2-5 million dollar range.

The cryptocurrency expert and venture capitalist, Tim Draper, has also given its opinion about the future price of Bitcoin. According to him bitcoin and blockchain technology are one of the best things that happened for businesses.

Mr Draper said in 2014 that Bitcoin could reach $10,000 in just three years, something that happened in 2017, exactly on the date he predicted. When he explained that bitcoin could reach that price ($10,000), the cryptocurrency was traded just at $413 dollars.

At the same time, he said that in the future Bitcoin could keep growing. About that, he is convinced that the cryptocurrency is the future and that the virtual currency market will gain its place among fiat currencies.

Bitcoin is the future currency. Why would I sell the future for the past? Why would I go and grab some weird fiat subject to the will of some governments? he commented during an interview with Bloomberg.

The world market for cryptocurrencies is 6 trillion dollars, and I think that that it will be crypto. And I am really excited about all the extraordinary things that can happen because of crypto and bitcoin.

Cameron Winklevoss is one of the two popular Winklevoss twins. The co-founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, stated that bitcoin could be worth 40 times its current value.

In order to explain why bitcoin could grow up to 40 times, he compared the cryptocurrency market capitalization with the market cap of gold.

During an interview with CNBC he said:

So if you look at a $100 billion market cap today, now last week it might have been more like 200, so its actually a buying opportunity, we think that theres a potential appreciation of 30 to 40 times because you look at the gold market today, its a $7 trillion market. And so a lot of people are starting to se that, they recognize the store of value properties.

He has also said that due to the fact that bitcoin has a fixed supply, it is still a very underappreciated asset. Indeed, he stated that he and his brother believe that bitcoin disrupts gold.

The Winklevoss twins emphasized that they will not sell their bitcoins even if the price surpasses $380,000 dollars. This is a special number, because if bitcoin reaches this price level, its market capitalization will be equal to golds market valuation.

An important portfolio manager that worked for more than six years in the cryptocurrency world, predicted this year that Bitcoin could reach $50,000 dollars. While speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he brought some calm to the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin could definitely see $50,000 in 2018.

At the moment of the statement, Bitcoin was traded over $11,000, days later it reached the lowest point in months when it was displayed in cryptocurrency exchanges under $6,000 dollars.

But Mr Singh said that the kind of volatility that bitcoin experienced is not unusual nor unexpected. And thats confirmed when we pay attention to the charts. In the past, Bitcoin suffered important corrections in just a few days.

Mr Singh commented:

If you look at Microsoft of Apple when they went public their stocks were very volatile because the market wasnt mature. There are not so many vendors right now who can accept cryptocurrencies but theres huge adoption on the black market.

Cryptocurrency adoption keeps growing all over the world. In past articles we wrote that enterprises are investing in blockchain technologies and virtual currencies. Businesses all around the world, including small shops and merchants, are adopting bitcoin and other currencies as a means of payment.

If the adoption trend continues, bitcoin could lead the market towards new all time highs. Additionally, payment processors are working with cryptocurrencies trying to spread their benefits.

Lets get really speculative just for the purposes of illustration the growth thats possible in the coming years.

The current market cap of all global stock markets is around $100 trillion USD. Woah, right? Accordingly, lets say that the entire cryptocurrency market one day reaches this $100 trillion cap.

And lets also say that BTC maintains its current position as hovering around a 50 percent share of the entire crypto market (though, of course, theres no reason to believe itll stay at 50 percent forever).

That would put Bitcoin as having around a $50 trillion market cap. At this point, all we need is to divide $50 trillion by the number of bitcoins in existence.

Lets go with 17 million instead of 21 million since many bitcoins have been lost already.

Alas: $50 trillion divided by 17 million = ~$2,941,176. Round up, and thats $3 million per bitcoin.

Now, we cant count our eggs before theyve hatched. Theres still quite the mountain to climb for the crypto market to get even close to hitting $100 trillion. But maybe its possible in 30 or 40 years. Maybe not at all.

Its going to be a wild ride no matter what happens between now and then, that much is for sure.

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