Can you imagine a Bitcoin worth $500,000?

The price of Bitcoin will reach 50万美元by 2030. This is the prediction made recently by another ambitious figure - the first investor in Snapchat (photo-sharing app) about this digital currency.

Market development drives the price of coins to soar

In a joint speech with Blockchain CEO Peter Smith, Jeremy Liew, an investor who owns $2 billion of Snapchat shares, said external factors could drive demand for Bitcoin and could potentially push the price of the currency to unforeseen heights in the next decade.

Rising remittances, mobile phone penetration and political uncertainty ranked high among external factors.

Liew and Smith said:

We believe that awareness of Bitcoin, high liquidity, reduced trading pressure, and market adjustment to geopolitical risks will make Bitcoin a strong competitor, both from a consumer and investor perspective.

Developing countries are an important market for Bitcoin, with countries such as Kenya already conducting financial activities through mobile devices, bypassing the banking system required in a cash economy.

The monopoly of mobile devices can bring more convenient ways to send money. In Kenya, the startup BitPesa has begun to build a market with Bitcoin.

According to Smith and Liew, the number of users and the value of a cryptocurrency are inextricably linked:

In other words, for the price of Bitcoin to reach $500,000 by 2030, the number of users would have to account for a quarter of China’s total population (or 5% of the world’s total population).

Bitcoin's slow and steady growth in 2017

The factors currently hindering the adoption of Bitcoin, particularly network capacity and the cautious approach taken by regulators toward financial instruments, are all within Smith’s expectations.

Referring to the rejection of the Winklevoss twins’ Bitcoin ETF, he said:

We are not surprised by the SEC’s decision.

We know that it takes a long time to get this kind of application approved. At the same time, buying and selling Bitcoin has become very simple. And this asset is becoming more and more mature. As peripheral products are developed and deployed, we will witness the continued development of Bitcoin.

Regardless, given the current situation, both Smith and Liew believe that the price of the cryptocurrency will eventually settle at $1,000 in 2017 — slightly lower than its current price.

Bitcoin has high credibility

Other notable price predictions include Vinny Lingham, who said in December that the coin could hit $3,000 by 2017.

He still has a hint of caution in his prediction of the development of Bitcoin. He believes that a rapid price increase is harmful to the Bitcoin industry and is likely to cause price fluctuations and a lack of trust again.

Smith concluded:

…Bitcoin is very resilient and stable…In fact, in the more than 7 years of its existence, the Bitcoin blockchain has never stopped operating due to a malfunction, which is something that other end-to-end systems of similar size cannot achieve.