Blockstream CEO Adam Back believes that the price of Bitcoin (BTC) could reach $10 million by the end of the sixth halving in 2032, provided Bitcoin’s layer 2 technology and wallet infrastructure improves. .
In a February 12 Twitter thread, Back, one of the Bitcoin core contributors, was explaining to his 509,000 followers in what situation Hal Finney’s $10 million price prediction for BTC could come true.
He noted that the BTC price has doubled year-over-year on average since 2013 and explained that if that trend continues, the BTC price would hit $10 million along with a market capitalization of $200 trillion in about nine years.
Earlier this year I was curious about the “bitcoin 2x per year on average” claim. check: the decade jan 2013 – dec 2022 #bitcoin it went up 2,036x/year (1200x in a decade). if that continues we will cross $10k/BTC and $200 tril market cap by the end of the next 2 halves, roughly 9 years. pic.twitter.com/mqmO2SRdAv
—Adam Back (@adam3us) February 12, 2023
However, Back said that to reach that figure, improvements to Bitcoin’s Layer 2 technologies and wallet infrastructure need to be accelerated to allow time for these innovations to scale up:
“I think things will get ‘interesting’ in the next two halves. and fast, we don’t have a lot of time to scale the technology. we need a place for the next billion users to have their own UTXO, their own keys, with censorship-resistant cold storage. without weakening the security of the main chain”.
Back said that “it probably means sidechains/drivechains as tradeoffs. more lightning optimization (…) we don’t have much time as technology takes time to mature, wallets, interoperability, integration”.
responding to a comment, Back said that he believes that Bitcoin adoption has not reached the end 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 cold storage wallets:
“Given the volatility, I think #bitcoin can go wildly overshoot and take advantage of one of these $100-300 trillion market caps, correct, and then regain more stable adoption over time. I suspect that people with average entry points, relative to the current price, will not have much incentive to sell in size.”
The CEO explained that some of that next wave of adoption may come from what he describes as “hyperbitcoinization outbreaks,” where people in hyperinflationary environments will “rush” into bitcoin:
Related: Blockstream CEO Adam Back discusses Bitcoin during a game of Jenga
However, responding to another comment, Back also admitted that “we have completely failed to fund bitcoin” thus far. The cypherpunk suggested that Bitcoin could be used in mortgages where the property is used as collateral and Bitcoin as interest:
“The native bitcoin financialization market is immature, almost intact. Structured bitcoin products, mortgages backed by real estate but with interest backed by BTC, other products make bitcoin easier to use for more people and fit risk profiles. which generates more growth”.
Back added that to get close to $10 million, BTC would also need to “displace” a significant proportion of store-of-value premiums in portfolios of bonds, real estate, gold, and stocks.
Do you think Bitcoin Twitter is bullish? Hal Finney (@halfin), was calculating a bitcoin price of $10,000,000 per coin just ONE WEEK after the genesis block on January 3, 2009.
absolute legend. pic.twitter.com/5MptLhEYHL
—Doctor (@DrBitcoinMD) August 23, 2019
BTC is currently priced at $21,800.