Powered by changes taking place in the global economy, can Bitcoin realistically hit a price of $8 million?
The meteoric rise of Bitcoin (BTC -2.91%) could be far from over, according to Michael Saylor, the executive chairman and co-founder of MicroStrategy (MSTR -2.14%). At the Bitcoin Prague event in June, Saylor predicted that Bitcoin could eventually hit a value of $8 million per coin.
Given Bitcoin’s current price of roughly $60,000, that would imply a more than 13,000% return on investment. That’s equivalent to Bitcoin skyrocketing in price from $450 to $60,000 — a process that took nearly a decade. As a result, it might be tempting to dismiss this bold $8 million prediction. But there are two very good reasons why Saylor might just be right.
Bitcoin is “perfect money”
Given that Bitcoin is a digital currency created by an algorithm, it has some very specific properties that distinguish it from traditional money. For one, it has a finite supply. You can’t just print more Bitcoin, the way a cash-strapped government can print dollars. Only 21 million coins can ever exist, and the Bitcoin algorithm carefully controls the overall circulating supply. Moreover, Bitcoin is a completely decentralized currency, meaning that no sovereign power or government can control it.
It’s these properties, says Saylor, that help to make Bitcoin “perfect money.” It is anti-inflationary, making it a potential hedge against inflation. It is a superior long-term store of value, making it an alternative to physical gold. And it is resistant to government seizure, making it a potential safe haven asset if you live in a country with an overreaching central authority.
Over time, Saylor suggests that the differences between Bitcoin and traditional currencies will become even starker, and that will lead to capital flowing into assets denominated in Bitcoin rather than dollars. It might also lead to Bitcoin revolutionizing the global financial system, as the world moves to a new Bitcoin standard.
Admittedly, if you’re new to Bitcoin, all of this might sound incredibly optimistic. Indeed, Saylor — who is arguably the highest-profile Bitcoin bull in the world right now — is often so relentlessly bullish about the future of Bitcoin that some of his predictions ring hollow.
Yet, it’s hard to deny that the U.S. government is running unsustainable deficits. By some estimates, the U.S. is adding $1 trillion in new debt every 100 days. At some point, people are going to stop buying U.S. government debt, and that’s when the “Bitcoin is perfect money” scenario might start to play out.
Bitcoin offers “corporate immortality”
Saylor is also at the forefront of suggesting that companies add Bitcoin to their balance sheets as a treasury asset. That’s the approach pioneered by MicroStrategy, which started an aggressive Bitcoin buying strategy in 2020. Since that time, MicroStrategy has bought so much Bitcoin that it is now the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin in the world — and it’s not a close race. MicroStrategy now holds over 1% of all Bitcoin, worth approximately $15 billion.
Image source: Getty Images.
According to Saylor, holding Bitcoin on a corporate balance sheet creates the potential for “corporate immortality.” Since the value of Bitcoin will increase in perpetuity, so will the value of a company.
To illustrate this point, Saylor points to the last 100 years of U.S. economic history. How many companies still exist from 100 years ago? A handful at best. In contrast, the final sliver of the last Bitcoin will be mined in the year 2140, so companies that hold significant amounts of Bitcoin today theoretically have the potential to live for at least 100 years.
Over time, as more companies buy Bitcoin, the higher its price will go, as a result of this new buying pressure. Just keep in mind that, at a certain point, you may have to suspend belief for this scenario to play out. During the last Bitcoin bull market rally, for example, companies like Tesla were lining up to buy Bitcoin. However, that strategy hasn’t exactly worked out the way they thought it would, due to Bitcoin’s enormous volatility.
“Everybody gets Bitcoin at the price they deserve”
Obviously, at this point, you’ve probably realized that Saylor’s $8 million price prediction is based more on a macro narrative about where the world is headed, rather than a numbers-driven, analytical model. So it’s perfectly plausible that you might decide to pass on Bitcoin as an investment opportunity. Fair enough.
But, as Saylor warns, “Everybody gets Bitcoin at the price they deserve.” Saylor says he first thought about buying Bitcoin in December 2013, when it was trading at $892. But the Bitcoin story just seemed too good to be true. So he waited and waited, and finally bought Bitcoin when it was trading at $9,500. That was the price he deserved.
While I remain unconvinced that Bitcoin is about to hit a price of $8 million anytime soon, I am convinced that there appears to be a paradigm shift taking place in the global economic order. For that reason, I’m growing increasingly bullish on Bitcoin’s ability to rise in value over the long term.
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