$8 Million: ‘Crypto Genius’ Reveals His Craziest Bitcoin Prediction Yet

Crypto Celebrities Keep Saying the Craziest Things

The Bitcoin price is on a roll in 2019, but it still has a ways to go before it reaches “Altucher Territory.” | Source: CoinMarketCap

James Altucher has been preaching what he knows about money since long before the Bitcoin gold rush of 2017, in which mainstream celebrities tried to get crypto rich and pumped the price. The semi-viral financial star is joining the $1 million club, claiming that Bitcoin has a chance to pump to that price eventually. He says it can go beyond that if mass adoption takes off, to more like $8 million.

“How much paper currency is out there…it’s about $200 hundred trillion dollars out in the world, and there is only about $200 billion dollars of crypto currency, so that is 100,000 percent from here. So that could give bitcoin a price of $8 million dollars, so $1 million dollars is even a discount to where bitcoin could eventually go. When it gets there, who knows,” Altucher said.

The class of 2017 firmly expected another gold rush past $20,000, which will relieve a lot of people who feel they’re “involuntarily” holding large bags.

Not that long ago, “crypto genius” James Altucher was touting the “next Bitcoin. | Source: Pretty much every website crypto investors visited in 2017.

Altucher isn’t the only one to claim Bitcoin’s headed north of $1 million. A former IBM blockchain chief was saying the same thing. Other people like John McAfee believe it can go that high. Then there’s that kid, Erik Finman.

One thing is certain. Lightning Network will need to become the norm as regular interest takes hold in Bitcoin. Payment channel providers will need to find a way to service the majority of companies that are using on-chain transactions now and provide them with the ability to use Lightning instead. It’s probably silly to expect the mass of users to create their own nodes for payments, but several larger services will hopefully emerge that reliably help people push transactions through.

Don’t Talk about a $1 Million Bitcoin Price Until Lightning Adoption Truly Takes Off

Don’t even talk about a $1 million Bitcoin price until we see actual Lightning Network adoption. | Source: Shutterstock

Similarly, Bitcoin wallet services need to integrate more with Lightning Network. If this is how the network is to be scaled, mass adoption means that most users need to have the option to try the service out quickly. New wallets shouldn’t be required – existing wallets should integrate the services as quickly as possible.

The result would be as many people using Lightning Network as possible. In this scenario, the hope would be that most people were using Bitcoin’s “second layer” quickly and cheaply.

Other second layer solutions may emerge which offer similar speed and cost efficiency. The only concern is whether newcomers will latch onto these solutions or use whatever’s available to them. In either case, a broader base of companies and providers integrating Bitcoin’s scaling solutions will lead to a better scenario for mass adoption.

If we assume this will naturally evolve through the market dominance (and cost) of Lightning Network, then, either way we look at it, most Bitcoin transactions should and will be taking place through the second layer protocol.

It won’t matter until the vast majority of services, exchanges, and wallets are using Lightning Network.

Once that happens, users will see real benefits. Until then, it’s just one exotic option in a sea of them, and Altucher’s $8 million Bitcoin price prediction is just the craziest call from a circus of crypto celebrities.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author and do not represent those of, nor should they be attributed to, CCN.