The latest Bitcoin price predictions for 2018 show little restraint, despite prices falling 50% from their all-time high set in mid-December.
Bitcoin bulls have issued predictions ranging from a relatively modest $24,000 to a stratospheric $250,000.
The current Bitcoin price is about $11,000, well off the Dec. 17 record high of $19,783, but above the recent low of $9,200.
That means the Bitcoin bulls foresee gains of anywhere from 118% to 2,170% from today's levels.
That's in line with what we've seen the last two years...
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The Bitcoin price rose 1,325% in 2017, which came on the heels of increases of 123% in 2016, and 82% in 2015.
These Bitcoin price forecasts are all the more remarkable given the seemingly endless stream of bad news that has dogged the cryptocurrency in recent weeks.
Bitcoin has suffered from moves by the Chinese government to further restrict Bitcoin trading (it shut down the domestic exchanges last September) and curb mining (about 70% of Bitcoin mining is done in China).
The price of Bitcoin has also taken a hit from rumors South Korea was considering a total ban. But this week, the government decided instead to ramp up regulations, putting a stop to the use of anonymous bank accounts to trade the cryptocurrency.
Back in the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a letter explaining in blunt language why it won't be approving a Bitcoin ETF (exchange-traded fund) any time soon.
But none of these developments truly threaten Bitcoin. Trading in China will likely move underground. The Chinese miners are already making plans to relocate to friendlier locales, such as Canada.
And the new South Korean regulations will serve to reign in excesses - a positive thing for Bitcoin in the long run.
The folks making those lofty Bitcoin price predictions realize the situation is not nearly as dire as the mainstream media would have you believe.
Bitcoin has survived the collapse of its biggest exchange (Mt. Gox, in 2014), the rise of more than 1,300 rival cryptocurrencies, and a civil war over scaling that resulted in the Bitcoin Cash hard fork.
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Remember, the Bitcoin price hit its all-time high just three months after China shut down its exchanges.
It will rebound.
What's more, the price of Bitcoin will have several new catalysts driving it in 2018, such as the Lightning Network. Lightning technology addresses Bitcoin's two biggest drawbacks right now - slow confirmation times and congestion on the network.
So these dramatic Bitcoin price predictions come as no surprise to me...
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These public forecasts see Bitcoin at least doubling in value by Dec. 31.
In addition, Money Morning contacted five other influencers for their Bitcoin price predictions and thoughts on Bitcoin in 2018.
Anthem Hayek Blanchard
CEO of Anthem Gold
What do you consider the most significant Bitcoin/crypto news to come out of 2017?
The most significant Bitcoin news in 2017 was the rapid Bitcoin BTC price increase, at one time 20x, from $1,000 per BTC in January 2017 to touching $20,000 Dec. 17th, which roared higher with the introduction of Bitcoin futures in December on the mainstream bank-powered financial futures clearinghouses CME and CBOE.
What major developments do you expect in 2018, both for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general?
This year will bring a proliferation of initial-use cases for well-developed cryptocurrencies -which are really types of software called "public blockchains" - to showcase their purposed utility of solving trust issues in services where legacy centralized software services failed to provide adequate accountability and data integrity.
What is your Bitcoin price prediction for the end of December 2018?
I think BTC will touch $250,000 per BTC this year and will end 2018 above $200,000 per BTC. I think the price will be propelled by a new influx of buyers who are attracted to more traditional futures and ETF Bitcoin products that are packaged by centralized mainstream financial institutions.
Spencer Bogart
Head of Research, Blockchain Capital
Markets event: Futures products - opens Bitcoin to institutional investors and, on a higher level, could mark the beginning of the institutionalization of Bitcoin. Technical event: Segwit - because it enables more elegant second-layer solutions, potentially improved privacy, cross-chain atomic swaps, AND fixes a pesky bug in the protocol.
Markets developments: I think there's a good chance we'll see the approval of a futures-based Bitcoin ETF by the end of the year. Technical Bitcoin developments: Exciting things on the horizon include Lightning, Schnorr signatures, MAST, Lightning Network.
I really don't know what will happen to price, and I don't have a target. That said, when I look out over the next 12 months, I see a fundamental supply/demand imbalance that will have to send prices higher. The supply side is fairly well-covered: There will only be 21M coins ever, 80% have already been issued (the vast majority of which are locked down with long-term holders), and only another 4% will be issued this year - point being, there's not a lot of supply on the market.
The interesting side of the equation, though, is demand, which we can carve into two big chunks: retail and institutional. Retail has been effectively 100% of the market so far, and it's still very early days even on that front: A survey conducted by Harris Poll at the end of October showed that less than 2% of Americans own Bitcoin, compared to 19% that said they're likely to buy in the next five years - that would be a 10x increase in adoption right there (5x even if only half of those people actually follow through), which would likely have a bigger effect on price. Then, if we consider the institutional side of the table (which is MUCH larger than retail side), we're in even earlier stages: Institutional ownership is still effectively 0%, so if we go to even 0.5%, it would be a massive inflow of capital. I think it would be very easy for retail market alone to drive us over $25,000, and if Bitcoin also gets any traction in institutional markets then it could easily go over $50,000. That's not to say that it will, though. Bitcoin has had an incredible run and we could easily pullback significantly, too.
John Pfeffer
Partner, Pfeffer Capital LP (UK)
The emergence of an altcoin bubble that is endangering both the space and investors.
What major developments do you expect in 2018, both for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general? Bitcoin: the development of financial markets infrastructure and a significant increase in investment from mainstream institutional investors (family offices and non-crypto hedge funds). Other crypto: something ominous - either the altcoin bubble grows or it bursts - both are bad news.
$75,000.
Michael A. Robinson
Money Morning Director of Technology & Venture Capital Research
Two pieces are equally significant. First, the rise of professional traders through the recent launch of futures contracts that make this now a "Wall Street" investment; and second, the staggering, short-term increase in the price. I had thought that Bitcoin could go to $10,000, but not that fast, and certainly not double that amount in just a few months.
For 2018, I think Bitcoin will be highly volatile. In December, I told readers of my Strategic Tech Investor newsletter to avoid Bitcoin in 2018, because it would become a roller coaster ride now that the "pros" are in the market. And pretty much right on schedule, BTC sold off and became turbulent. I also think we will see the continued rise in price and popularity of other cryptos, particularly Ethereum. That crypto is a great computing platform gaining acceptance among major corporations, such as Microsoft with its addition to Azure.
For 2018, I honestly can't predict what will happen with the Bitcoin price. A lot depends on investor sentiment and how many forks we see in the blockchain over the next several months. It's an odd situation, in which the spin-offs compete with the original crypto, but also build in demand for those who want the new coins for free.
Tim Draper
Founding Partner, Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) venture capital firm
What do you consider the most significant Bitcoin news to come out of 2017?
The biggest news was that Bitcoin prevailed over all the bad news. The world needs Bitcoin.
I expect that ICOs will become more standardized, that they will open up a new burst of entrepreneurial creativity, and they will lead us to new forms of government that we can try out and adapt. Bitcoin will get easier to spend and more commonplace as a store of value.
My new prediction will be announced at our Bitcoin party at Hero City in April. If you read my book, "How to Be the Startup Hero," you can extrapolate a price. Update: On April 12, 2018, Draper predicted that Bitcoin would hit $250,000 by 2022.
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