$10K Bitcoin By 2018? Looks Like Tim Draper Was On The Money

Fobes ^ | 11/26/17 | Jesse Damiani

[Enlightened1]

As Bitcoin values continue to climb, the prophecy by the 'Nostradamus of the markets' is coming true.

In September of 2014, in an interview with Fox Business, Tim Draper claimed Bitcoin would hit $10,000 USD in three years. To put that in perspective, Bitcoin was worth $413 USD at the time of the interview.

Even strong believers in bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general were skeptical of such massive overall growth—particularly after the intense fluctuations the market, like the crash of 2011, in which the cryptocurrency declined in value by 94 percent.

Well, today, Bitcoin surged past $9,000—having increased well over $2,000 in the last month alone—making that wild prediction of yore look a lot more like a safe guess (even leaving aside the value of Bitcoin Cash, currently hovering around $1,600 USD).

In the Bitcoin.com roundtable, "What Would You Do If BTC Hits 10K?" from May 2016, enthusiasts responded to this claim with ideas about what they would do with their bitcoin if in fact it did reach the five-figure tag

[Enlightened1]

I think Bitcoin will his 10k before December 1st, 2017.

Check out the Bitcoin price on Jan 1st, 2017 and look at it today.

[Enlightened1]

[Stosh]

How many tulip futures can one buy with 10K of Bitcoin?

[rb22982]

tulips

[MeganC]

Watch for the Federal Reserve and the international bankster cartels to start banning Bitcoin.

[lodi90]

There will be a war over bitcoin before it’s done, IMO.

[lodi90]

Watch for the Federal Reserve and the international bankster cartels to start banning Bitcoin.

---

Only a matter of time since low level criminals are using it massively now. I expect the banksters will use the “human trafficking” card soon and try to put this horse back in the barn.

[Reno89519]

What percentage of Bitcoin is legit and what is drug, blood, and other laundered money? Seems the whole point of Bitcoin is to avoid currency and tax laws, to facilitate illegal activity.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“What percentage of Bitcoin is legit and what is drug, blood, and other laundered money? Seems the whole point of Bitcoin is to avoid currency and tax laws, to facilitate illegal activity.

And yet US currency is used worldwide for the purposes you cite.

The point of bitcoin is privacy, as a hedge against government overreaching, and of course there are speculators like every market has.

Beware though, the IRS tracks bitcoin purchases and sales and has said gains will be taxed... so it is not completely private.

[Ribeye]

26.6% return on $10K that I put into BTC & LTC 18 days ago. I cashed out yesterday morning and just had $10,2600 deposited into my bank account this morning. There’s $135B in BTC market cap alone. It’s not all “dark money”....

[brianr10]

So, what merchants accept Bitcoin?

[jjsheridan5]

What percentage of Bitcoin is legit and what is drug, blood, and other laundered money? Seems the whole point of Bitcoin is to avoid currency and tax laws, to facilitate illegal activity.

Actually, the real point of bitcoin (and other cryptos) is to provide a superior mechanism for payment over a public network. Compare bitcoin vs. paypal. It is superior in every way. The most important distinction is this: if I pay you over paypal, then paypal needs to verify both of our identities. This opens up a world of potential problems: paypal needs to have enough information about us to verify; paypal needs to store personal information; personal information is temporarily stored on both browser and server, which creates other avenues of attack; and so on.

By contrast, if I choose to pay you over bitcoin, our identities are not important. Instead, what is verified is the coin itself. This is crucial, since it means two things: first, there is no need for a "paypal" (or a bank) which acts as the sole verifier; and second, no personal information is needed, and therefore all attack vectors revolving around the stealing of credentials are gone.

Quite frankly, there really is no comparison -- cryptos are so vastly superior to any other kind of digital account, and any other kind of digital payment system, that there is no question that in 10 years all digital payments will go through some kind of crypto currency.

Is bitcoin (and others) a bubble? Of course. Not only are people gambling that bitcoin will be the bitchain-based currency, but you also have the entire world of ICOs, which are causing a feeding frenzy of "investment" similar to the IPOs of old.

But the statement "the whole point of Bitcoin is to avoid currency and tax laws, to facilitate illegal activity" could not be more wrong. The whole point of Bitcoin is to provide a safer, cheaper, and more robust digital payment mechanism, and to provide a payment mechanism that does not open up personal data to theft.

[brianr10]

That’s what we used to do with cash.

[jjsheridan5]

So, what merchants accept Bitcoin?

Ultimately, that may not matter much. As long as the market for bitcoin stabilizes, then it is quite possible that bitcoin will serve roughly the same role as gold. Actual transactions won't be made in bitcoin, but they would, in this scenario, be made in crypto currencies which are convertible into bitcoin. In that case, bitcoin would be incredibly valuable, even though few merchants accept them from customers.

Personally, I think that this is the scenario that plays out. Bitcoin has weaknesses that ultimately will give rise to other crypto currencies (both public, and crypto currencies that are only narrowly accepted). But the market for bitcoin will remain robust, because these other currencies will be traded on the larger bitcoin markets. (Basically, a company may issue a crypto currency for use by their customers, but that privately issued crypto currency is then tradeable on any one of the public exchanges -- the company, and customers, get the benefits of a robust, private, and hacker-proof digital payment system, without some of the inherent flaws of bitcoin).

If that is the actual scenario that plays out, then bitcoin are almost ludicrously underpriced.

[Uncle Miltie]

[jjsheridan5]

That’s what we used to do with cash.

Excellent point. Bitcoin is ultimately serving the same role as cash -- a means of exchange that is not dependent on identity verification. The problem with cash is that it is not suitable for digital payments (preventing double-spending is virtually impossible). Technically, the bitchain frameworks have solved this double-spending problem, and allowed bitcoin (and other large crypto currencies) to occupy the same role that cash played in the non-digital world.

[Cementjungle]

26.6% return on $10K that I put into BTC & LTC 18 days ago. I cashed out yesterday morning and just had $10,2600 deposited into my bank account this morning. There’s $135B in BTC market cap alone. It’s not all “dark money”....

How do you buy/sell the things?

I have considered doing some short term buy/sell transactions, but whenever I look at how it seems complicated and quite risky since none of the brokers are really licensed or regulated it seems.

[Ribeye]

GDAX or Coinbase for the beginner. There are transaction fees, similar to an online equity trading account. The security is pretty intense. Aside from a password you need either a cellphone (for texted temp access codes) or an “Authy” or similar identity “token generator” for 2 step identity verification. Bitcoin.com has some good info regarding cryptos, what they are, how they “work”, what “mining” is, etc. I tend to stick with Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum.

Regarding the security of your digital or US funds, should you take a shot at this, this is directly from GDAX:

“How deposits are insured on GDAX”

Aug 25, 2017
Digital Assets

All digital assets that we hold in online storage are fully insured. This means that if we were to suffer a breach of online storage, the insurance policy would pay out to cover any customer funds lost as a result.

The insurance policy covers any losses resulting from a breach of physical security, cyber security, or by employee theft. The policy is provided by a syndicate of insurers through Lloyd’s of London.

We hold less than 2% of customer funds in online storage. The rest is held in offline storage.

This insurance policy does not cover any losses resulting from the compromise of your individual account. It is your responsibility to use a strong password and maintain control of all login credentials you use to access GDAX.

USD, GBP, and EUR Balances

We store all customer USD, GBP, and EUR in segregated custodial bank accounts. The funds held in those accounts belong to the relevant customers.

For US customers, your USD balance is covered by FDIC insurance, up to a maximum of $250,000.”

[Cementjungle]

If I go to GDAX and hit "create account", it takes me to Coinbase... so I guess they're one and the same.

How long does it take to collect from a small (1 coin or less) sale? Minutes, days, longer?

[RightGeek]

Bkmk