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HyperBitcoinization: How Currency Crises Are Driving Nations To Crypto (#GotBitcoin?)

Venezuela, Turkey, Iran and Zimbabwe: these countries are all facing ongoing economic crises. They’re suffering from high levels of inflation, and as a result the people living within them are increasingly turning to crypto as a store of value and a means of exchange. Their recent troubles have heightened the distant possibility that, at some point in the future, hyperbitcoiniztion will take place, with Bitcoin (or some other coin) replacing the bolívar, the lira, the rial and other struggling national currencies, and perhaps even becoming the world’s dominant form of money, as predicted by the likes of Steve Wozniak and Jack Dorsey. HyperBitcoinization: How Currency Crises Are Driving Nations To Crypto

However, as encouraging as such developments are for Bitcoin’s reputation as a store of value, it’s unlikely that the moves of Turkish, Venezuelan and Zimbabwean citizens toward it and other cryptocurrencies are an immediate precursor to the kinds of blanket adoption processes outlined in the noted 2014 “Hyperbitcoinization” article by Daniel Krawisz. Even though they’re conspicuously increasing, the BTC volumes traded in the affected countries above are not significant enough relative to global volumes, while the isolated nature of most of these nations means that adoption has little chance of spreading outward.

Added to this, for as long as such global reserve currencies as the U.S. dollar, the euro and the Japanese yen remain stable, crypto adoption won’t be boosted by high inflation in nations where the population has access to such currencies — and not to mention gold.
HyperBitcoinization: How Currency Crises Are Driving Nations To Crypto (#GotBitcoin?)

Venezuela

The textbook case of crisis-driven crypto adoption is Venezuela, with the first report on Venezuelans turning to Bitcoin arriving in October 2014. According to Reuters, Venezuelans were being driven to the cryptocurrency by the capital controls imposed by President Hugo Chavez in 2003, which made it excruciatingly hard for them to obtain U.S. dollars. Given that, even then, hyperinflation was in motion in Venezuela (at 68.5 percent), locals began purchasing — and mining — Bitcoin, which stood at $388.30 by the beginning of that October, despite having fallen by around 49 percent since the beginning of the year.

While data on the actual number of people using Bitcoin at this point isn’t available, the Reuters article states that Venezuela “already [had] at least several hundred Bitcoin enthusiasts.” Somewhat less vaguely, Coin Dance records that 625,573 Venezuelan bolívar (VEF) was traded for Bitcoin on the LocalBitcoins peer-to-peer (p2p) crypto-exchange in the week of Dec. 12, 2014, equivalent to about $99,403.55 at the conversion rate of the time. Similarly, CryptoCompare lists a high for 2014 (on Dec. 24) at VEF 553,633.30, which, at around $87,972.33, underlines how the volumes being traded weren’t massive — particularly for a nation with a gross domestic product (GDP) of $482 billion — even if they were growing as a result of economic pressures.

Since 2014, things have picked up gradually. In the week ending on Dec. 17, 2016, there were Bitcoin trades worth a total of VEF 527,945,763, which, due to inflation of around 275 percent in 2015, translated to $105,589.15 at then-current conversion rates. That year, individuals involved in the Venezuelan crypto-economy had begun speaking in favor of Bitcoin and other cryptos as genuine alternatives to the bolívar and even the U.S. dollar, with the founder of Bitcoin Venezuela, Randy Brito, telling Cointelegraph in January 2016 that BTC could be “a genuine savior of the Venezuelan economy.”

“The Bitcoin market in Venezuela is indeed big and growing at a fast rate. The absence of exchanges have seemingly gone unnoticed as most Bitcoin miners within the country trade informally with people they can trust — basically for reasons of privacy, as they seek to conceal their source of wealth from the public.”

Coupled with the ability Bitcoin grants Venezuelans for resisting a government that has effectively robbed people of wealth by presiding over an inflationary regime, its growing value over the course of 2015 and 2016 gained it increasing popularity. Indeed, the local Surbitcoin exchange told the Washington Post in March 2017 that the number of Bitcoin users expanded from around 450 in 2014 to 85,000 in 2016.

Once again, such numbers aren’t massive for a country with a population of approximately 31.5 million, but the deteriorating situation in Venezuela has meant that they only increased further in 2017 and 2018. For the week ending on June 24, 2017, the VEF/BTC market on LocalBitcoins alone had reached a volume of VEF 9,210,450,540, according to Coin Dance. This equated to around $1,151,306.32 at the time, while the week of Dec. 30, 2017 saw a trade volume of VEF 281,525,042,307 on LocalBitcoins — or $2,815,250.42, according to then-current black market exchange rates.

This year, even with the advent of the state-controlled and oil-backed Petro cryptocurrency, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies more generally have continued to enjoy a strong increase in usage. In fact, Reuters has recently reported that no crypto-exchanges are trading the Petro and that no Venezuelan shops currently accept it, while the likes of Bitcoin have continued to see growth. Assuming the same crude volume-to-users ration that was evident at the end of 2016 (i.e., Bitcoins worth $105,589.15 traded by around 85,000 users), there were around 926,500 Bitcoin users in the week of Aug. 18, 2018, when 673 Bitcoin was traded against 27.28 trillion Venezuelan bolívars on LocalBitcoins. At the black market exchange rate (i.e., 1 VEF = $5,921,486.23) that applied prior to the Venezuelan government officially devaluing the bolívar by 95 percent, this equalled around $4.6 million.

It’s not clear to what extent traded volumes will continue to grow now that the government has devalued the bolívar, yet the economic pressures faced by Venezuela have caused its population to adopt Bitcoin more speedily than other nations with comparable GDP. For instance, in New Zealand and Romania — two countries the International Monetary Fund (IMF) puts next to Venezuela in terms of GDP — the LocalBitcoins BTC market has grown by 875 percent and 2400 percent respective since 2013. By contrast, the LocalBitcoins BTC/VEF market has grown by a staggering 67,300 percent since 2013, with 536 Bitcoin being traded in the week ending on Aug. 25. If nothing else, this underlines the kind of boost hyperinflation can give to cryptocurrency adoption. And seeing as how the IMF has predicted that inflation could reach 1,000,000 percent by the end of 2018, the boost is likely to be even bigger in the coming months.

It’s not only Bitcoin that has enjoyed the fruits of Venezuela’s economic disaster, as other cryptocurrencies have also made inroads into the South American nation. Since at least September 2016, Venezuelans have also been avid users of Dash, whose faster confirmation times and lower transaction fees generally make it more convenient as a means of payment. Buoyed by active moves on Dash’s part to promote their coin among Venezuelans as an alternative to the bolívar — and to Bitcoin — it’s reportedly the most popular cryptocurrency among local merchants — at least, according to Dash themselves — with upward of 540 merchants in the country now accepting it as a means of payment.

Iran

Iran is another country that has been on the wrong end of U.S.-led sanctions in recent years, and like Venezuela, its national currency — the rial (IRR) — is suffering from high inflation, although its current rate of 18 percent doesn’t quite match the 82,766 percent currently seen in Venezuela.

As recently as this April, the rial’s rate of inflation was only 7.9 percent, yet this jumped to 9.7 percent, 13.7 percent and then 18 percent in May, June and July. Much like Venezuela, the Iranian government responded to this precipitous increase by announcing plans in late July for a state-run cryptocurrency, while the Iranian population had by that point already traded crypto worth $2.5 billion, according to a May report from Forbes. This was despite the government having introduced an April ban on banks dealing in cryptocurrencies.

And since April and May, there has been a noticeable uptick in the IRR/BTC market on LocalBitcoins. For instance, between July 7 and July 28, the volume of this market increased by 109.1 percent, from IRR 9.467 billion to IRR 19.796 billion (i.e., to roughly $176,758.31, according to black market conversion rates).

By contrast, a country with a similarly sized GDP — Thailand — witnessed only a 27.6 percent increase over the same two-week period, from 12.2 million Thai baht (THB) to THB 15.6 million. That said, this latter figure equals $476.410, meaning that the BTC market is bigger in Thailand in absolute terms. More importantly, it also means that an inflation crisis alone isn’t enough to bring about widespread crypto adoption overnight, since it’s clear that the Iranian market for crypto is not only small, but is hampered by legislation that makes it illegal. It has also been undermined by the enduring popularity of gold, which rose by 300 percent against IRR in the three months leading up to June and which has reportedly replaced the U.S. dollar in local Iranian markets, according to the Iran Gold & Jewelry Association.

Zimbabwe

Another nation that has its own economic woes is Zimbabwe. In 2009, it abandoned its own national currency (the Zimbabwean dollar), doing so after a trillion-dollar note was introduced and after the currency had braved 10 years of hyperinflation — the rate of which reaching as high as 231,000,000 percent in July 2008.

Since then, the government has permitted the use of a variety of currencies — including the U.S. dollar, South African rand, and the euro — yet, this drastic measure introduces problems of its own, such as acute shortages of foreign cash. To combat this, the Zimbabwean government has been imposing capital controls, setting the latest this May, when the central bank limited the amount of USD people can withdraw from ATMs and send out of the country to $1,000.

In the face of such restrictions, Bitcoin witnessed price increases above the global average on the Zimbabwean Golix exchange at the end of 2017, with the price even doubling in November as locals sought to obtain currency that wasn’t controlled or restricted by the government. It was also in November that Golix celebrated a quadrupling of its monthly transactions, around the time when the country had been destabilized by fresh dollar shortages, 50 percent inflation — affecting the new bond notes the government introduced in November 2016 — and a military coup. Consequently, Golix saw its monthly trade volume increase to $1 million, which was an impressive feat considering that, over the entire course of 2016, it handled a grand total of $100,000.

Turkey
A similar picture has emerged from more recent Turkish history, with inflation issues provoking a comparable — if not quite as dramatic — swing toward crypto. These issues first became acute when the inflation rate of the Turkish lira (TRY) climbed to 11.9 percent in October 2017, as the nation’s banks took on risky levels of private debt, as foreign investors moved out of the country, and as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan refused to increase interest rates in response.

Following this, Turkish people began looking toward crypto, although the volumes at the time weren’t significantly larger than those for nations with similar GDP levels. For instance, in the week ending on Nov. 4, 2017, 41 Bitcoin was traded for Turkish lira via the LocalBitcoins exchange, while in Mexico — which has a similar GDP, but an inflation rate of around 4.5 percent — 38 Bitcoin was traded for Mexican pesos. In other words, relatively high inflation can give a slight boost to crypto adoption, but without hyperinflation, it doesn’t result in a dramatic increase (e.g., 303 Bitcoin was traded for Venezuelan bolívars on the week that ended on Nov. 4).

However, this year there has at least been the threat of hyperinflation, as Turkey entered a nascent crisis, which saw inflation rise to 15.39 percent, at the beginning of July. As a result, there was a 131.9 percent increase in volume on the LocalBitcoins exchange between the beginning of July and the beginning of August, with the BTC trade volume in Turkish lira rising from 327,295 to 759,026 between the week ending on July 7 and that ending Aug. 11.

Between these two dates, the price of BTC actually sank from $6,670 to $6,145 (-7.87 percent), meaning that this rise can’t be accounted for by a strong bull market in Turkey. Similarly, figures from CryptoCompare, culled from the BTCTurk and LocalBitcoins exchanges, reveal that there were trades in Bitcoin worth TRY 31,592,628 on Aug. 10, representing a 424.3 percent increase when compared to the 24-hour volume for July 10, which was TRY 6,026,033.

Speaking of the Turkish inflationary crisis and its positive effects on demand for crypto, ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees noted on Twitter that Bitcoin’s recent resilience in the face of crypto-market turbulence had raised its stock as a store of value and made it a viable alternative to the Turkish lira.

We’ve entered a time now where some fiats are far less stable than Bitcoin. Turkish lira plummeting ~20% in one day. https://t.co/ct1GnrCnKG #BackedByGovernment #TRY #forex

— Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) August 10, 2018

It would seem that an increasing number of Turkish people agree with him, given that a June survey from ING Bank revealed that Turkey has the highest rate of cryptocurrency ownership in the world — or rather, out of 15 countries, including the U.S., Australia, the U.K., France, Germany, and the Netherlands. 18 percent of Turkish people own some cryptocurrency, compared to 12 percent for the next highest — Romania, which also happens to have the highest rate of inflation among the 14 other nations — and eight percent for the United States.

However, an inflation rate of around 15 percent isn’t enough on its own to drive widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies, nor is it sufficient to trigger the process of hyperbitcoinization. For one, even if the TRY/BTC market has enjoyed increases in volume in recent weeks and months, absolute numbers are still comparatively low, with the market currently being the 16th largest for Bitcoin at the time of writing, according to CryptoCompare. This equals a 24-hour volume of BTC 226.09, which is only 0.08 percent of the total amount traded in a day, and only 0.48 percent and 0.68 percent of the volume traded against the U.S. dollar and Japanese yen respectively.

Also, if you look at the TRY/BTC charts for LocalBitcoins, the recent inflation-driven increase over July-August isn’t that large and is actually dwarfed by the trading volumes in Turkish lira as witnessed in April and early June and particularly during the end-of-2017 rush. And in fact, if you compared the TRY/BTC figures for the week ending on Aug. 11 against those for the week ending on Aug. 18 — during which the crisis reached its peak, with lira falling by as much as 10 percent — there is a drop rather than an increase. TRY 759,026 was traded for the week ending on Aug. 11, while only TRY 573,626 was traded for the seven days leading up to Aug. 18.

In contrast to the growth of crypto visible in Venezuela and Zimbabwe, what this lack of a pronounced upswing points to is access to the U.S. dollar, among other fiat currencies and stores of value. In contrast to Venezuela and Zimbabwe, the Turkish government has opted not to set any capital controls, thereby enabling people to buy and sell as much foreign currency as they like. As a result, Turkish investors and the Turkish people have begun buying U.S. dollars and gold, as indicated by how both have risen markedly against the lira. And in turn, neither Bitcoin nor any other cryptocurrency has seen a big jump in trading volumes recently, even though the longer-term weakness of the lira has played a role in giving Turkey one of the highest rates of crypto ownership in the developed world.

Argentina And Reserve Currencies

Much the same story can be gleaned from Argentina. At 31.2 percent, Argentina currently has the highest inflation rate of any moderately sized economy — which the IMF ranks as 21st in terms of GDP — and as could be inferred from such a statistic, cryptocurrencies should be enjoying a strong following in the South American nation.

However, despite the early expectation that Argentina was ripe for Bitcoin adoption, it would seem that the population doesn’t currently trade cryptocurrency in impressive numbers. On the LocalBitcoins exchange, the highest number of Bitcoin bought in 2018 using Argentine pesos in a single week was 31, during the week ending on July 7. And for the sake of comparison, Sweden has the 23rd largest GDP according to the IMF, yet during the week ending on July 7 many more Bitcoin — 112, to be precise — were traded for Swedish krona.

According to CryptoCompare, Argentina is only the 45th biggest market in the world for Bitcoin (Sweden is the 31st), despite having the sixth highest rate of inflation in the world. And as with Turkey, a big part of the explanation for this is that Argentina hasn’t had strict capital controls since 2015, when incoming president Mauricio Macri lifted the controls imposed by his predecessor, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, in 2011.

Because of this, Argentines have access to U.S. dollars and other currencies, something which circumvents the need for cryptocurrencies as a store of value.

Still, even without any recent jump in crypto trading or ownership, Bitcoin still has a noticeable presence in Argentina. Not only has an Argentine bank recently begun using Bitcoin for cross-border payments instead of the SWIFT network, but the country was also one of the earliest adopters of Bitcoin during the period between 2011 and 2015 — even though capital controls were in place. As reported by Tom Jeffreys in early 2016, Bitcoin was already accepted by 145 merchants in Buenos Aires alone (it’s now accepted by 194), implying that the cryptocurrency wasn’t simply a store of value but also a method of payment:

“For many, the practical, everyday uses of Bitcoin in a country like Argentina are the early lab tests of radical financial overhaul that could have wider implications for the global economy.”

Grim Scenarios

The lesson provided by all of the above examples is the following: Cryptocurrencies have a huge potential as alternative methods of payment and stores of value during financial crises. However, as long as world reserve currencies — such as the U.S. dollar and euro — remain stable, and for as long as people of an unstable nation have access to such reserves, no cryptocurrency is likely to gain widespread adoption and use in that country — at least not as a result of inflation. More simply, there will be no hyperbitcoinization as long as the U.S. dollar remains strong.

As illustrated by Coin Dance’s numbers for markets on LocalBitcoins, trading volumes are highest — and rise the fastest — in nations where there’s very poor access to a reliable fiat currency. Consequently, what’s needed to drive the mass adoption of crypto in any one nation isn’t simply inflation, but also a shortage of US dollars and other stale foreign currencies.

260,000+ Bitcoin-Accepting Stores In Japan

As of March 2018, the East Asian nation has at least 3.5 million citizens trading cryptocurrencies — yet the Japanese appear particularly partial to Bitcoin.

According to data aggregated by the Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA), Japan’s BTC annual trade volume saw a 444,000% increase in the last three years — up from $22 million in 2014 to $97 billion at the close of 2017.

Three months after Recruit Lifestyle partnered with Japanese bitcoin exchange Coincheck to enable over 260,000 retail stores to accept bitcoin, the company has finally announced on Monday that its point-of-sale app is now bitcoin-ready. Immediately, a chain of 334 eyeglasses stores using the app announced that it will accept the cryptocurrency.

Currently, about 260,000 commercial facilities, food establishments, drugstores and other retail locations nationwide use this tablet-based POS system. Coincheck said in April that by this summer, bitcoin will become a payment option at all of these shops that use this proprietary app. The exchange explained:

Customer holding bitcoins can pay with bitcoin simply by scanning the barcode displayed on ‘Mobile payment for Air Regi’ app.

First Roll Out – 334 Eyeglasses Stores

Rollout of 260,000+ Bitcoin-Accepting Stores in Japan BeginsOn Monday, a chain of eyeglasses stores with 334 locations across Japan also announced that all of its stores will start accepting bitcoin beginning July 10. The chain is called Megane Super and it uses the Air Regi app.

The company expects its user base to increase, especially from Europe and the U.S., since the new form of payment will improve convenience, Kabutan reported. In addition, it believes adding the bitcoin payment option will attract tourists to the stores which already accept Alipay and Line Pay through Air Regi.

Unbanked: What Happens When a Country Is Financially Cut Off?

Cash is king in the Marshall Islands as complex banking rules scare away foreign partner bank.

What happens to a country if it loses access to the world’s money?

On the Marshall Islands–a chain of volcanic islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, population 53,066—the only homegrown bank can’t issue credit cards, doesn’t have any ATMs and sends well-worn dollar bills between its island branches by boat. But it had been able to let islanders send and receive money from abroad through a link with Honolulu-based First Hawaiian Bank .

Now, it is in danger of losing that crucial financial tie to the outside world as First Hawaiian, a unit of France’s BNP Paribas, prepares to close down all business with the Bank of the Marshall Islands. Without an international banking relationship, the bank gets cut off from a number of services, not just from handling international money transfers but also cashing paychecks from one of the island’s largest employers—the U.S. military base.

The closure is a side effect of stricter banking rules to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing. Banks are especially wary of exposure to small Pacific nations that struggle to meet complex regulatory demands. International banks have also pulled out of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga and the use of cash across the Oceania region is rising, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Banks make at best scant profits from tiny markets like the Marshall Islands, the world’s fourth-smallest economy. Spread over an area roughly the size of Indonesia and vulnerable to rising sea levels, the country uses the dollar as its currency and is highly reliant on U.S. assistance.

First Hawaiian, which doesn’t have any branches on the Marshall Islands but has acted as an intermediary for the country’s bank, hasn’t found evidence of illegal financial activity but now views the business risk of its long-distance relationship as too high, according to people briefed on the matter. BNP officials have declined to comment on the bank’s decision and when exactly the exit will occur.

The process of moving money into the country is already circuitous. When Albious Latior wants to send money from Springdale, Ark.—home to Tyson Foods and a contingent of Marshallese—to his brother in Ebeye, the country’s second most populous area, he first has to wire it via Western Union to relatives in Majuro, the capital. They then transfer it via the domestic bank to his brother in Ebeye.

Ebeye’s only venue for international transfers has been a MoneyGram branch tied to the domestic bank. During tax season, there can be a line of 100 people outside, says Ramanty Chong Gum, a 34-year-old high school math teacher on Ebeye. The MoneyGram already restricts the number of transactions for each customer; with First Hawaiian’s exit, that channel will be cut off altogether.

“People think you just put money in and it comes out the other side,” said Brad Windbigler, Western Union senior vice president and treasurer. “Most banks are still very national or tied to a specific region. So most banks need to deal with another bank to move money.”

Unlike MoneyGram, Western Union can continue to operate in the Marshall Islands, as it bypasses the nation’s financial system by working through the Bank of Guam, which has one branch in Majuro. But for anyone on Ebeye, receiving money through Western Union means either using a middleman or taking a flight or a long boat ride 275 miles to the capital.

Workarounds abound. Marshallese lucky enough to have debit cards issued by a foreign bank can ask friends who work on the U.S. military base on Kwajalein Atoll, where there is a bank operated by Bank of America (only American military personnel can open accounts there) to withdraw money for them. Card holders give their cards and pin numbers to friends who work on the base. Those without cards make deals with those who do. Favors often involve a “tip” for the helper.

“We give them a little extra on the side for their assistance,” said Ms. Chong Gum.

In the absence of credit cards, mom-and-pop stores keep a log of transactions on credit until paychecks arrive, issuing cash for any remaining balance.

Many Marshallese stock up on food before leaving the country, as United Airlines, the one carrier that flies out of Majuro to the U.S., no longer accepts cash on board. “I’ve known some families who traveled here, and they couldn’t eat on the flight back,” said Lacutshirts Hosia, a photographer in Majuro.

None of this will get easier if First Hawaiian withdraws. The IMF and other agencies are now trying to help the Bank of the Marshall Islands get in compliance with the new rules.

“For a little country like this and for the small banking community there, this has been overwhelming,” said Andrew Spindler, president of the Financial Services Volunteer Corps, a New York-based nonprofit that has been working with Marshall Island officials.

“The tide has been rising over the last 10 to 15 years about what banks expect from each other,” said Adam Szubin, who has led efforts to combat terror financing and money laundering at the U.S. Treasury Department. “And that has excluded some peripheral banking systems that just haven’t caught up.”

Officials agree that the financial isolation and the trend toward cash come with their own risks.

An inability to make international payments means it’s harder for businesses to settle trade deals and potentially diverts funds into shadow-banking channels, according to the Financial Stability Board, an international body that monitors the global financial system.

In addition, access to outside capital is crucial to fighting poverty in the emerging world, said Robert Mosbacher Jr., former president of the Overseas Private Investment Corp., a U.S. government agency that helps American businesses invest in emerging markets.

In a desperate measure earlier this year, the Marshall Islands announced it would launch a cryptocurrency, a move financial experts say won’t solve its banking woes.

Carolina Claver, senior financial-sector expert at the IMF, said at the fund’s annual meeting that it’s difficult to blame banks for leaving minuscule markets. “It is a business decision,” she said. “But on the other hand, you cannot exclude completely a country because it is small.”

“Everybody’s using cash and that’s bad for anti-money laundering,” says Sultan Korean, banking commissioner for the Marshall Islands.

Updated: 6-6-2021

Bitcoin Bulls Give ‘Conservative’ 10-Year Estimate For Hyperbitcoinization To Hit

A decade to hyperbitcoinization is “most likely,” says Kraken executive Dan Held, a forecast echoed by Unchained Capital’s Parker Lewis.

Bitcoin (BTC) may be just 10 years away from seeing mass adoption in an event known as “hyperbitcoinization.”

That’s according to participants of the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami, who on June 4 delivered surprisingly optimistic verdicts on when hyperbitcoinization will come.

Bitcoin Could Be Unit Of Account By 2031

Speaking on a panel, The Bitcoin Standard author Saifedean Ammous, Unchained Capital head of business development Parker Lewis and Kraken growth lead Dan Held all gave their deadlines for when Bitcoin will effectively take over global finance.

“I’d say a decade,” Lewis began.

“I think that based on how Bitcoin has been adopted historically and based on the trillions of dollars that the Fed is going to have to print in the coming months to years, that it would potentially be conservative to say that Bitcoin’s a unit of account in 10 years.”

That would involve the Bitcoin network onboarding billions of new users by 2031, but as the panel noted, the rate of adoption since 2011 has already produced hundreds of millions of Bitcoiners.

“I’m going to be a little more conservative than Parker and say maybe 15 years to 16 years — you know, four more halving cycles,” Ammous continued.

His perspective is similar to that of PlanB, creator of the stock-to-flow Bitcoin price models, who previously estimated that after several halving cycles, it will become impossible to measure Bitcoin’s price in dollars. This is because as a currency with no bottom, the potential for Bitcoin to grow in U.S. dollar terms is infinite.

Hyperbitcoinization By 2026 Is “Unlikely” But Possible

“I would say at least a decade for hyperbitcoinization would be the most likely and actually conservative estimate,” Held concluded.

“If we do have an event where there’s rapid devaluation of fiat currency, Bitcoin starts to surge or gets close to $1 million per Bitcoin — a supercycle-esque moment — then we could see it much sooner, maybe five to six years or so. But that would be a very unlikely outcome. I think it could happen, but it’s not likely to happen.”

As Cointelegraph reported, the stock-to-flow model predicts an average BTC/USD price of either $100,000 or $288,000 this halving cycle, depending on which type of model is used.

So far, PlanB has remained unfazed by the recent rout that took over 50% of Bitcoin’s value off its latest all-time highs of $64,500.

 

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