Author of The Bitcoin Standard rejects forecast of BTC approaching $1 million

The economist and author of the cult classic The Bitcoin Standard, Saifedean Ammous, did not back the forecast that the first cryptocurrency would reach $1 million within the next three months.

I feel dirty sounding bearish on bitcoin, but I do not think bitcoin will hit $1m in 90 days & and I do not think the dollar can possibly hyperinflate this quickly.

My reasoning follows https://t.co/y5g9CK2qxA

— Saifedean Ammous (@saifedean) March 22, 2023

In mid-March, Balaji Srinivasan, a former partner at a16z and Coinbase’s CTO, made a $2 million bet that within 90 days the price of digital gold would soar to $1 million.

Ammous said he felt ‘awfully bearish’ about Bitcoin, but did not believe in such a surge for the cryptocurrency in this particular case.

The main argument from Srinivasan was the looming banking crisis, which, he argues, would be far deeper than in 2008. He says it would trigger hyperinflation in the leading fiat currencies, most notably the dollar.

However Ammous noted that a banking crash is a deflationary event, as it contracts the money supply.

Analyzing Srinivasan’s arguments, the economist further noted: even if central banks began printing unbacked money to tackle the crisis, this would not trigger hyperinflation. For Bitcoin to reach $1 million in the specified timeframe, the dollar would have to devalue by 50% in a day, which Ammous called unrealistic.

Even in countries with ‘ailing’ monetary and financial institutions, achieving such rates of devaluation would take many months, if not years, the economist stressed.

Ammous also reminded that Bitcoin’s daily mining in the current four-year cycle is about 900 BTC. This implies that to reach and sustain a price of $1 million would require a daily inflow of $900 million of \”new money\” into the cryptocurrency.

“It’s not impossible, but extremely unlikely. Even in the wildest Bitcoin booms, we have not seen anything like such a surge in demand for the cryptocurrency in such a short period,” the economist said.

In his view, Srinivasan is right about the long-term prospects for digital gold. However, its adoption will not be quick or easy. Ammous likened it to \”moving from Windows to Linux\”.

“Rome wasn’t built (or destroyed!) in a day. The transition to Bitcoin will probably take much longer than three months,” he concluded.

Earlier, ARK Invest specialists forecast that Bitcoin will exceed $1 million by 2030.