Happy Birthday, Bitcoin! 2021 Is Your Year

It’s Bitcoin’s 12th birthday today. And Bitcoin has smashed through $34,000 per coin. On some days, it’s rising by thousands per trading session.

“The move is extremely bullish. This year might see Bitcoin touching six digits. This is a birthday gift for holders of Bitcoin,” says India based BitBNS CEO Gaurav Dahake.

The first bitcoin was mined on January 3, 2009.

This year is already shaping up to be the Year of Bitcoin (BTC). Sorry haters. If I could include that old gif of a green parrot in pixelized shades bobbing its head like it’s dissing you, then I would include that right here.

Everyone who has held onto this thing since it fell under $10,000 knows that even if it falls to $10,000 again, there will be buyers. We have more believers now. You just need patience. The only outspoken investor that hates Bitcoin these days is Peter Schiff.

This article below about Schiff’s constant BTC beatdown is an oldie but a goodie by Forbes contributor Billy Brambrough:

MORE FROM FORBES[Updated] Here’s Why Peter Schiff’s ‘Ridiculous’ Bitcoin Claim Can’t Be True-‘Mystery’ Solved!By Billy Bambrough

“BTC is becoming more mainstream,” says James Reilly, the developer behind Ether-1 in Santa Rosa, Calif. The two year old company runs a decentralized hosting and storage platform. “This isn’t a repeat of 2017 when many people were hearing about Bitcoin for the first time,” he says of the year Bitcoin cracked $20,000. It fell below $8,000 for the last two and a half years before breaking through $30,000 last week. “Just more people know what Bitcoin is or, at the very least, have a vague conception of what it is. It’s a household name, whether or not everyone believes in its value.”

The recent addition of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to PayPal’s

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platform will only further solidify the leading cryptocurrency’s use not only for shopping, but as a store of value.

“I cant think of where it’s going next,” says Vladimir Signorelli, founder of Bretton Woods Research in Long Valley, New Jersey. He recently bought into the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) exchange traded fund. He does not have a Bitcoin wallet at places like Coinbase, the traditional way to buy and sell Bitcoin. “I’m a little concerned that these valuations are being driven by the pandemic. But every major central bank in the world is signalling they’re going to print as much money as necessary so as a finite store of value, Bitcoin can rise against every major currency because there is a finite amount of Bitcoin in the world,” he says.

More financial institutions are embracing crypto as payment or as real investment choices. Fidelity is going to create custodial accounts for Bitcoin.

Last year has already witnessed a ground-breaking evolution in BTC adaptation, says Sheldon Xia, founder and CEO of Bitmart Exchange, a digital asset trading platform with roughly two million users worldwide. “In 2021, we’ll see an extension of this mainstream recognition, which will guarantee a long-term bullish trend,” he says.

Other than Fidelity and PayPal getting in on the act, Square’s $50 million investment in bitcoin, and Michael Saylor’s announcement of over $1 billion worth of Microstrategy’s

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capital into Bitcoin have been year-ending tailwinds for BTC, says Sam Farao, managing partner at Forgeblock Capital in Oslo. “Fun fact: Ever since the Norwegian Oil Fund has invested in companies that own bitcoin, it means every Norwegian owns bitcoin,” Farao says. “I’m optimistic that we will see some more significant U.S. or European banks that will enable purchase or agree to hold cryptocurrency assets for their clients.”

In 2019, Goldman Sachs

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and others said that Bitcoin was akin to digital gold. It was an investor’s hedge against hyperinflation. Looking at the trillions spent on currency hedges globally, one can imagine how big BTC gets if Goldman Sachs and others are right — and BTC becomes a new type of currency hedge.

If you consider bitcoin a currency hedge, then the market’s rise makes perfect sense. Global GDP is about $80 to $82 trillion and if 2.5% of world GDP is involved in currency hedging, for sake of argument, then Bitcoin could easily take a share of that space because it is proving itself to be a store of value that investors can hold over a one to two year period. This isn’t a fad anymore.

Unlike fiat currencies, that are printed at will, there are only around 18.5 million Bitcoins that have been mined. If this year there are 19 million BTC and you divided that by $2 trillion or 2.5% of world GDP, then you can draw the conclusion that Bitcoin goes to $100,000 someday, Signorelli calculates.

When? That’s anybody’s guess. Bitcoin was trading at just over $3,800 on March 12. That wasn’t all that long ago.

“I am sure that in the next five years Bitcoin can go far beyond $50.000,” thinks Sergei Khitrov, CEO of Saint Petersburg-based Blockchain Life. He sees four main reasons for the call: large funds entering the market, mass acceptance of cryptocurrencies, tokenization of large companies (Amazon

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coin?), and development of national cryptocurrencies as we are seeing being test driven in China.

No one really knows, of course, if Bitcoin goes to $50,000 this year or back to $5,000. However, if one were to measure, the scale is tipped away from the likes of Peter Schiff — a total crypto bear — and weighing in favor of the crypto bulls.

That has a lot to do with the changing nature of finance, new blockchain systems, and fintech in general. Not to mention the debasing of currencies whereas some actually yield zero to negative interest; a total money loser.

“Technology will be more revolutionary changes to finance,” says Xia. “I’m really thinking that decentralized finance will one day replace Wall Street. We are still at an early stage of the token economy. In the near future, when more use cases of blockchain technology comes to life with its ability to create more transparency and fairness while saving businesses time and money, then more people will buy into it,” he says. “If you have Bitcoin in 2021, the best possible suggestion I could give you is to hold onto it.”