Tim Draper, the billionaire venture capitalist and Bitcoin investor, said that he still believes that the cryptocurrency will reach a value of $250,000 by the end of 2022 or early 2023.
“I think I’m going to be right on this one,” Draper told CNBC’s “Make It.” “I’m either going to be really right or really wrong [but] I’m pretty sure that it’s going in that direction.”
Speaking at his “Draper Block(chain) party” in California in 2018, Draper first made the prediction that the cryptocurrency would rise in value from just over $8,000 to $250,000 by 2022. He confirmed his prediction on Twitter.
“Oops! I predicted $250k in 2022. My tweet last night was missing a zero,” Draper tweeted. “$250k is the number!”
Oops! I predicted $250k in 2022. My tweet last night was missing a zero. $250k is the number!
— Tim Draper (@TimDraper) April 13, 2018
Earlier, Draper had tweeted “Serious winds (of change) at our block (chain) party last night. Predicting bitcoin at $25k by 2022.”
Serious winds (of change) at our block (chain) party last night. Predicting bitcoin at $25k by 2022.
— Tim Draper (@TimDraper) April 13, 2018
According to CNBC, Draper’s reasoning hinges on the expanding use of Bitcoin in the coming years.
“Give it about a year and a half and retailers will all be on Opennode [a bitcoin payment processor], so everybody will accept bitcoin,” Draper predicted, according to CNBC.
“Then beyond that, I think [bitcoin] continues up because there are only 21 million of them,” added Draper.
Draper also described Bitcoin as “sort of like Microsoft [in] the software world or Amazon in the e-commerce world.”
Bitcoin’s value has been notoriously volatile in recent months. In April, Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $64,829, before hitting a low of $30,000 the next month.
In late March, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced on Twitter that the electronic cars could be purchased using Bitcoin.
“You can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin,” Musk wrote. “Tesla is using only internal & open source software & operates Bitcoin nodes directly.”
“Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency,” he added.
Tesla is using only internal & open source software & operates Bitcoin nodes directly.
Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency.
— Elon Musk, the 2nd (@elonmusk) March 24, 2021
In mid-May, however, Musk then announced that the electronic car company would suspend vehicle purchases with Bitcoin, citing widespread and growing concern over “rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining.”
“Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin. We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel,” wrote Musk.
“Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and we believe it has a promising future, but this cannot come at great cost to the environment,” Musk continued. “Tesla will not be selling any Bitcoin and we intend to use it for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy. We are also looking at other cryptocurrencies that use <1% of Bitcoin’s energy/transaction.”
In a subsequent tweet, Musk described the energy usage trend of Bitcoin in recent months as “insane.”
Other factors have played into the cryptocurrency market’s volatility. For example, the cryptocurrency market crashed in mid-May after “after China banned financial and payment institutions from providing cryptocurrency services,” according to Yahoo! Finance.