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Billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper has said he will stick to his initial prediction that Bitcoin will hit $ 250,000 (around Rs. 1.85 crore) by the end of 2022 or early 2023, despite the massive crash of major cryptocurrencies just a few weeks ago. Draper, who has invested in Bitcoin, said he’s pretty sure the world’s largest cryptocurrency is going in that direction and gaining acceptability by then. He first made the prediction in 2018, when Bitcoin was trading at $ 8,000 (around Rs. 5.9 lakhs).
Major cryptocurrencies lost much of their value in the recent stock market crash after drawing strong criticism for increasing fossil fuel consumption and China’s crackdown on their trading. Bitcoin, which has seen a meteoric rise this year, hit an all-time high of nearly $ 65,000 (around Rs. 48 lakhs) before losing more than 50% in value last month.
I think I’m going to be right on this one, Draper told CNBC, adding that I’m going to be really right or really wrong. I’m pretty sure it goes that way.
At the time of writing this article, the price of Bitcoin stands at $ 39,000 (around Rs. 29 lakhs).
Draper’s proposed timeline is still over a year away and he said his prediction will hold as more people start trading cryptocurrencies by then. Give it about a year and a half and the retailers will all be on OpenNode (a Bitcoin payment processor), so everyone will accept Bitcoin, he said.
Currently, few companies accept cryptocurrency payments directly or through third-party digital wallets. Draper also based his prediction on a potential increase in demand with more people using them as only 21 million Bitcoins are available for mining in total. Over 18 million Bitcoins are already in circulation.
Draper, 63, is a seasoned venture capitalist who built his wealth by investing early in Twitter, Skype, Tesla and SpaceX.
Speaking of Dogecoin, which has been repeatedly backed by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, he said it might have potential because it makes us all smile, but the engineers aren’t working on it and everyone is focused on Bitcoin. At the time of writing this article, the Dogecoin price in India stood at Rs. 23.7.
Last week, Bitcoin got its first upgrade in four years. It is expected to go into effect in November and will likely make transactions more efficient and offer greater privacy.
Draper said he believes Bitcoin, despite its massive energy consumption which was also reported by Musk, will be a major player in all financial activities for the next two to three decades.
Elon, first of all, is one of the brightest men in the world, perhaps the brightest, [but] he was wrong on this one, Draper said last week.
Interested in cryptocurrency? We discuss all things crypto with WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty and WeekendInvesting Founder Alok Jain on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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