Latest news about Bitcoin and all cryptocurrencies. Your daily crypto news habit.
Crypto pioneer Adam Back thinks the current financial situation could propel Bitcoin to $300K â even without Goldman Sachs on board.
Blockstreamâs Adam Back says that unlimited money printing will drive retail investors toward Bitcoin and push the price to $300,000 within five years.
In an interview with Bloomberg â in which he once again denied he was Bitcoin (BTC) creator Satoshi Nakamoto â Back outlined his thinking behind the sky-high price prediction.
The cypherpunk OG â who was cited in the Bitcoin white paper â added that BTC may not need the long-awaited flood of institutional money to push it into a bull run.
âIt might not require additional institutional adoption because the current environment is causing more individuals to think about hedging,â Back said. âAnd retaining value when thereâs a lot of money printing in the world.â
Back is a HODLer
Back â who holds the BTC he mines in expectation of price appreciation â cited a number of trends working in Bitcoinâs favour. These included more people working from home as well as overvalued bonds and real estate investments, which make it difficult to get a decent return on most investments.
âIt is causing people to think about the value of money and looking for ways to preserve money,â Back said. âItâs a difficult environment to get any yield.â
While he praised institutional investment fund Grayscale Investments, which is now buying up more Bitcoin than is being mined, he said the investorsâ call from Goldman Sachs last week showed many big players did not understand the paradigm shift. However, this was a money-making opportunity for those already in the space.
âIt showed some misunderstandings about digital scarcity and whatâs useful about Bitcoin,â Back said.
âYou have a major sophisticated market player like that with unclear understanding of the value. To me that indicates thereâs still a lot of headroom for price appreciation and adoption in the market.â
Back in the day
In May, a YouTube video from Barely Sociable claimed Back was Satoshi, racking up 300,000 views. Heâs in the realm of likely candidates, being an early cypherpunk who came up with Hashcash â a system of verification used by BTC. So, is he the man?
âNo I am not,â he said â but then added that Satoshiâs identity shouldn't be revealed because Bitcoin is akin to digital gold and âyou wouldnât want gold to have a founder.â
âFor Bitcoin to keep a commodity-like perception, I think itâs a very good thing that Satoshi stays out of the public.â
Which suggests that even if he was, he wouldnât admit to it. Itâs a Catch-22.
Inflation makes $300K achievable
In January, Back responded to reports that had unearthed early Bitcoin dev Hal Finneyâs wild speculation that Bitcoin may be worth $10 million one day. Back said that it was entirely possible that high inflation could make $1 worth $0.10 over a decade or so, which would mean: â$10mil/BTC is $1mil/BTC in todayâs money.â
âAnd $100K Bitcoin doesnât seem so far given we already crossed $10k threshold a few times when few expected even $1k some years back and $10k seemed crazy.â
With that in mind, itâs possible that Back expects a $300,000 BTC price in five yearsâ time to be more achievable, as it would be worth considerably less in todayâs money due to inflation.
Itâs closer than it sounds as along the path of hyperbitcoinization, the USD inflation rises, eg aided by Modern Monetary Theory rationale for high inflation, so $1 becomes worth say 10c over a decade or two of monetary craziness, then $10mil/BTC is $1mil/BTC in todayâs money.
â Adam Back (@adam3us) January 11, 2020
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Bitcoin Insider. Every investment and trading move involves risk - this is especially true for cryptocurrencies given their volatility. We strongly advise our readers to conduct their own research when making a decision.