More than half of bitcoiners believe the price of their favourite digital currency will reach $10,000 this year, a CoinDesk poll has revealed.
2013 was a turbulent year for bitcoin, with the price of the digital currency fluctuating between $13 and $1,147, but the bitcoin community largely thinks it will soar way higher than this over the next 12 months.
A whopping 56% of the 5,500 people polled so far said they believe the price will reach $10,000 this year.
Some 31% said they didn't think the price would rise to this level and 13% thought the notion of it reaching $10,000 was ridiculous, replying "WTF are you smokin ???".
Twitter reaction
Bitcoiners in the Twittersphere also shared their varied views, with @jsbarretto expressing that he hopes the price will not reach $10,000 this year.
@Bitcoin I hope not. Keeping the exchange rate stable means that Bitcoin will become more of a serious currency.— Joshua Barretto (@jsbarretto) January 1, 2014
@m52go chipped in:
— Steve Jain (@m52go) December 31, 2013
Rather more optimistic was @oleganza, who predicted that the price could rocket to $10,000 within the next few months:
— Oleg Andreev (@oleganza) December 31, 2013
@jebus911 said:
@BitcoinMania1 @Bitcoin @coindesk I think the odds of 10000 are much higher than people think— Jeremy (@jebus911) December 31, 2013
Bullish predictions
The Winklevoss twins certainly think it's possible for the price of bitcoin to reach $10,000 (and even higher), perhaps not in the next year, but eventually.
They said they expected bitcoin would one day be worth 100 times what it was at the time ($343).
Back in early December, a report from Wall Street analysts Gil Luria and Aron Turner predicted that the price of bitcoin could increase to almost $100,000.
Titled 'Bitcoin: Intrinsic Value as Conduit for Disruptive Payment Network Technology', the report predicted the price of bitcoin could increase to 10-100 times its value at the time, which was around $1,000.
Ex-Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya also believes the price of bitcoin will rocket to much higher than levels seen to date. He said each bitcoin could go on to be worth more than $400,000, provided it establishes itself as a "useful reserve currency".
While these may be long-term predictions, political and financial pundit Max Keiser thinks a $5,000 price mark is on its way:
As predicted, 2014 will see hedge funds and PE funds (like Fortress) enter BTC space. Hello $5,000!— Max Keiser (@maxkeiser) December 31, 2013
Keiser has long been bullish about bitcoin. Back in March, he said: “It is inevitable that Bitcoin will become a multi-trillion dollar enterprise because every other currency in the world is tied to dying central banks that are encumbered with impossible-to-pay debts and bankrupt counter-party risks.”
Mainstream opinion
It's important to note that CoinDesk's poll targeted those who already know about bitcoin, so it isn't clear what the general consensus is on the future price of bitcoin.
What we do know, thanks to a recent poll conducted by Bloomberg, is that 42% of Americans have heard of bitcoin and know it is a digital currency. It's worth noting that they only quizzed 1,000 people, though.
Of those who identified bitcoin as being a digital currency, 46% said they favoured bitcoin regulation, 39% said bitcoin should not be regulated and the remaining 16% were unsure.
The price of bitcoin is currently $775, so it's still a long way off reaching anywhere near $10,000. That said, the price increased 8,723% in 2013, so it's entirely possible that this could happen again this year.
Hat tip to @bitcoin for the poll suggestion.