Bitcoin evangelists are at it again: Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong joined the multi-million dollar Bitcoin prophecy club on Tuesday, suggesting the cryptocurrency could reach “several millions” in value in what he called “the dawning of a new day for crypto.”
“We’ve seen incredible growth and I think it hit an all-time high yesterday, so we feel really good about that,” he said. CNBC this morning. “I think we will see Bitcoin move into the multi-million price range over time.”
If crypto hypester John McAfee were alive today, he would be proud.
When I predicted Bitcoin at $500,000 at the end of 2020, it used a model that predicted $5,000 at the end of 2017. BTC has accelerated much faster than my model assumptions. I now predict that Bircoin will reach $1 million by the end of 2020. I’ll still eat my dick if I’m wrong. pic.twitter.com/WVx3E71nyD
Unlike McAfee, Armstrong gave four credible reasons to support his prediction:
“If the US were to follow that path, the rest of the G20 would likely follow,” Armstrong argued about a strategic reserve. “I think Bitcoin still has a long way to go – it will be the new gold standard, but crypto is really much bigger than that.”
Armstrong is hardly alone in the high-stakes prediction game. MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor, whose company owns 461,000 Bitcoin worth more than $49 billion, went even further. The tech entrepreneur predicted in September that Bitcoin could reach $13 million per coin in the next 21 years.
That’s an increase of over 12,000% from the current price of under $107,000, in case anyone’s counting.
The bullish sentiment partly stems from recent developments in American politics. Trump’s pro-crypto stance has boosted the market. Saylor said: “Republicans have become much more progressive and Democrats are drifting toward the middle in their views on crypto and Bitcoin.”
Both Coinbase and MicroStrategy have obviously invested heavily in Bitcoin’s success. Coinbase, a crypto exchange, relies on trading activity for revenue, while MicroStrategy has bet its coffers on Bitcoin, which controls over 2% of the cryptocurrency’s total supply.
MicroStrategy’s stock price has exploded since the company started buying Bitcoin in 2020, when the cryptocurrency was trading below $12,000. The company’s stock now serves as a proxy for Bitcoin exposure in traditional markets, even after the adoption of spot Bitcoin ETFs about a year ago.
So far in January, all stocks are up significantly, with COIN up about 18% and MSTR up 34% at the time of writing.
Image: Trading view
Armstrong’s predictions, shared during a CNBC interview, come at a bullish time among institutional investors. Bitcoin is currently going through a phase of “extreme greed” among investors, according to an index from Alternative.me.
That said, follow the markets, but don’t bet on the words of the market makers. Contrary to McAfee’s 2017 prediction – which promised “eat my dickIf Bitcoin doesn’t reach $1 million in 2020, Armstrong carefully avoided setting a specific timeline, making his prediction technically valid for sometime between next Saturday and the heat death of the universe.
