In July 2020, the price of Bitcoin once again surpassed $10,000 and has not retested the sentimental support line since. Why is it not being as heralded as it was during our first trip above $10,000 back in late 2017? 2017 VS 2020 – What Goes Up, Must Come Down?

Many new investors arrived late to the party during bitcoin’s 2017 roller coaster ride. BTC started 2017 at less than $1,000 and ended it at nearly $20,000. Jumping in at (or near) all time highs (ATH) caused severe pain to many new investors.

The FOMO and general euphoria caused normally conservative investors to start acting like inexperienced day traders. Even seasoned investors, those who understood the parabolic charts could simply not continue, were smiling as they logged into their crypto wallets and exchanges and saw their portfolio value at an ATH. The subsequent crash to kick off the first quarter of 2018 wrung out almost all of them.

Crypto chat rooms and Twitter would tell you the purging of weak hands is actually a good thing. The consensus is the overwhelming majority only bought in to make a quick profit.

Yes, everyone that has been involved in the crypto community has their own story to tell. However, we are all personally invested as well in accomplishing this cultural shift. We tweet, blog, participate in forums and meetings, run channels and podcasts, and are involved in countless other crypto related projects.

If you happen to be in it solely for the money, well, I am glad to have you here! I believe busy people will jump into something in which they perceive has value even if they cannot articulate the implied value and features (decentralization, blockchain accounting, finite supply, not tied to the dollar, etc).

Besides FOMO and euphoria, 2017 had to deal with major hurdles in terms of scalability. Was something inherently wrong with bitcoin? Nothing that a little TLC could not fix. 2018 – 2020 saw better, scale-able solutions, the implementation of major mainstream benefits. In 2020, we now have increased block sizes, a stronger core of developers and the advent of the lightning network which freed up bottlenecks of transactions that had been plaguing it. Even the regulators are sending some positive signals.

All of this adds up to a more user friendly experience that can properly scale to compete with credit cards.

Combine the technology benefits with the steadily clearer regulation picture and we are setting up for a sustained bull market run. There will always be detractors, but there has been positive momentum lately in terms of regulators attempting to understand crypto.

Investors are looking for clarity rather than ambiguity. Recent government discussions appear to aim towards balancing investor protection and allowing for growth and innovation. I believe those of us in within the space also provide an added layer of policing by calling out the bad players and fraudulent projects.

Those of us that have believed in cryptocurrency for years now knew it was just a matter of time before we saw Bitcoin hit 10k. We believe in blockchain technology and its benefits. We expect it to grow exponentially stronger. We’ve been here through all of the hype, the good, the bad, the growth, the crash, and now the rebirth.

Consider this: The number of accounts with Coinbase now exceeds the number of brokerage accounts at Charles Schwab. With over 15 million accounts, the rate at which new users are signing up reminds me of when Netflix first began to gain popularity. Ten years ago no one could have imagined this.

While it’s difficult to estimate how many accounts and wallets are being used on other sites and exchanges, it is highly likely that the number of people who now own crypto has grown to around 35 to 50 million people (well below than 1% of the global population).

Bitinfocharts.com shows Bitcoin wallet addresses and breaks them down by the number of coins each owns (there are some worth over $1 billion now). Over 90% own less than 1 full Bitcoin, and nearly 50% own less than .001 BTC.

Above: Chart depicting a breakdown of BTC wallet amounts

Bitcoin is a finite resource, and 21 million coins is all that will ever exist.

There are currently more than 18 million coins in circulation, and of those, it is estimated that around 4 million bitcoins are lost forever (Source: Fortune.com) . Essentially, there are only 14 million truly circulating coins, and according to the Worldometer , there are 7.8 billion people living on the planet currently.

If we take the roughly 14 million currently circulating bitcoins and divide by the world population (7,800,000,000) it would mean there is only about .00170000 satoshis per capita available!

(A satoshi is the smallest unit of a bitcoin, equivalent to 100 millionth of a bitcoin)

It’s not outrageous to think within the next 20 years cryptocurrency will be used by nearly everyone. That means the minuscule amount of current users will pale in comparison to what will eventually be a reality.

Bitcoin is quickly being considered a store of value similar to gold. If its value reached the same value as the world’s gold supply ($9.0 trillion), that would mean that each Bitcoin would be worth $642,857 ($9 trillion divided by 14,000,000 BTC circulating).

For that reason alone, the day isn’t that far off that the mainstream and late adopters could very well be asking you,

“What? Are you serious? You actually owned Bitcoin back when it was only $10,000? I can’t believe it costs $600,000 now!

If you have yet to make the plunge it is not too late. In fact, now that the storm has resided it’s a great opportunity to take a closer look and get involved. In fact, you will still be considered an early adapter as it is still barely 10 years old.

If you are reading this and have yet to open a crypto wallet to hold your bitcoin (and other crypto) purchases, you can do so and get $10 worth of free Bitcoin by clicking below:

If you read this and still have questions, consider joining our crypto focus group where we personally answer all of them. We want you to feel comfortable in crypto and understand there is a lot of noise and confusion out there. We would love for you to join and become a confident crypto investor!

Trading and investing in digital assets like Bitcoin and other altcoins is highly speculative and comes with many risks. This analysis is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Always do your own research.