The price of Bitcoin could reach $250,000 to $500,000 within 12 to 24 months due to an influx of investments and growing interest in the asset, according to Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson.
“This will lead to an ecosystem whose value will begin to approach the capitalization of gold, an asset people have used as a store of value for over 5,000 years. Bitcoin fulfills this role on the internet and will maintain it for the foreseeable future,” the entrepreneur stated.
According to him, the catalysts for demand for the first cryptocurrency will be DeFi and governments.
“No matter how good Ethereum, Solana, and Cardano are, let’s be honest: authorities talk about strategic reserves exclusively in Bitcoin. This is their entry point,” Hoskinson emphasized.
He noted that the decentralized finance layer for the digital gold blockchain opened with the Taproot upgrade. This allows the first cryptocurrency to become an “awakened giant, four times larger than Solana and Ethereum combined.”
“The reality is that when these gateways open, I think DeFi in the Bitcoin ecosystem will eclipse this segment in the entire rest of the industry within 24 to 36 months. And this is thanks to scale and liquidity,” Hoskinson believes.
Users can already “enable DeFi mode” for their BTC on Cardano by linking with a “wrapped token” on the network, he noted. In October, the BitcoinOS project launched the cross-chain bridge Grail, allowing the transfer of the first cryptocurrency and ADA between blockchains.
A similar solution was also presented by the team at The Open Network (TON).
However, a researcher known as Duo Nine believes that “pumping” Bitcoin liquidity into DeFi protocols in such ways constitutes a “vampire attack” on the network and threatens its security.
Back in May, Hoskinson compared the first cryptocurrency to religion and later suggested this could lead to a loss of its market position in the long term.
He also expressed doubts about the true decentralization of Bitcoin.