Bitcoin's 4 Endgames

It is difficult for people who have learned about Bitcoin to remain indifferent to it.

Some people are Bitcoin "revolutionaries". For them, Bitcoin can reshape the financial system. Some of them will become Bitcoin "hodlers". Hoarding Bitcoin is their only purpose, just because they believe that Bitcoin will reach a very high level.

Some people are Bitcoin "MLM" followers. There are many central bank governors, economists and politicians who hold this view. They all believe that Bitcoin is a dangerous species. In fact, they are all worried that Bitcoin will weaken the traditional world's ability to create currency.

Some people are used to immersing themselves in the headlines created by the media and are too lazy to understand the origin of this revolutionary technology. They only know about Bitcoin's high volatility and money laundering function, but cannot imagine how Bitcoin will change their future lives.

No matter what position you hold, I believe there is at least one thing that will make you interested in Bitcoin, and this is also what people all over the world are concerned about - how much can Bitcoin rise in the future?

From Bitcoin evangelists to economists, everyone seems to have an opinion on this issue. For example, Tim Draper, a famous venture capitalist who invested in Baidu and Tesla a long time ago, predicts that by 2022, Bitcoin will reach $250,000 per coin! And McAfee, the founder of the famous antivirus software McAfee, predicts that Bitcoin will reach $1 million.

In fact, no one can predict the price of Bitcoin. The only thing we can predict is what Bitcoin might look like in the future.

Will it become a global currency? Or digital gold? Will it become a miracle? Or will it never recover? Here are my four scenarios for the end of Bitcoin.

1. Bitcoin becomes the global reserve currency

The HODLers firmly believe that Bitcoin will become the global reserve currency and replace the US dollar in the future. If this happens, the earliest hodlers will become billionaires.

For this to happen, there is a prerequisite - the general public begins to use Bitcoin on a large scale. By then, Bitcoin will be accepted by all merchants around the world and regarded as having the same status as the US dollar and other legal currencies.

By then, the mining rewards for Bitcoin miners may be close to zero, but the large-scale transaction volume will allow miners to earn enough transaction fees.

Satoshi Nakamoto’s original vision finally became a reality – “purely peer-to-peer electronic cash that can be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.”

But this is unlikely to happen in the years after 2019, as many Bitcoin holders currently use it as a simple speculative tool rather than having a real need for it.

2. Bitcoin becomes a “scarce security”

There are only 21 million Bitcoins at most, and this scarcity is further reinforced: it is estimated that at least 4 million Bitcoins have disappeared forever! In other words, there will only be 17 million Bitcoins in circulation in the future.

As Bitcoin becomes more successful, more and more people will want to own it. Driven by strong demand, the price of Bitcoin will continue to rise forever.

However, this strong public demand focuses on the speculative aspect of Bitcoin and has nothing to do with its use as a trading tool.

Although more and more merchants accept Bitcoin payments, most people are still willing to only accumulate Bitcoin rather than spend it because transaction fees have become too high.

In this case, Bitcoin becomes an investment product similar to securities, which runs counter to Satoshi Nakamoto’s original vision.

3. Bitcoin becomes digital gold

Because of its limited supply, Bitcoin is often compared to gold. In the eyes of many economists, Bitcoin is digital gold or gold 2.0, and Bitcoin is also regarded as a commodity by US regulators.

Bitcoin is still young, which is why it lacks stability. Maybe after a few rounds of bull and bear markets, the price of Bitcoin will continue to rise. But over time, its price will stabilize, just like gold did back then.

By then, Bitcoin will be regarded as digital gold and serve as a store of value.

4. Bitcoin is forgotten

The probability of the last scenario happening is very small, but it is still possible. In the future, its price will drop significantly and eventually become worthless.

The coin hoarders will be the big losers, and their dreams of getting rich quickly will be vulnerable. So, what will cause Bitcoin to disappear?

The first possibility is that it will be replaced by another cryptocurrency. From Ethereum to Ripple, from EOS to BCH, competitors are emerging one after another. It is not impossible for a new cryptocurrency to emerge that can solve Bitcoin's scalability problem and convince more users to use it. By then, Bitcoin will be almost gone due to the loss of its user base, and its first-mover advantage will be useless.

The second possibility is that the regulatory agencies of major developed countries become the terminators of Bitcoin. Although decentralization can greatly reduce this probability, there is already a precedent of "illegal holding of currency" in India, and it is not ruled out that other countries will do the same in the future.

The last possibility is that because Bitcoin holders only want to use Bitcoin for speculation, Bitcoin will never be able to realize its full potential. Until many years later, even Bitcoin's loyal fans lose confidence in it, and this technological revolution will end.

V. Conclusion

What will the future of Bitcoin look like? What will the price of Bitcoin be in 5, 10 or 50 years? These questions are raised every day in major communities and groups, and many people outside the circle are also curious about them.

Although Bitcoin may be the greatest technological revolution since the advent of the Internet, no one knows where it will end up. This is the beauty of Bitcoin: people can have the wildest ideas about Bitcoin, but nothing is guaranteed, and the community must keep fighting every day to make Bitcoin realize its greatest potential in the future.

Source: Block Impression