In an exclusive to Cointelegraph, 58 high-flyers from the Bitcoin community attending Amsterdam Bitcoin2014, predict where Bitcoin will be on Christmas day 2014. While some experts compared the task to attempting to forecast the weather on Christmas day – the time of year gives us a pretty good indication what the weather will be doing, and the predictions of some of our experts make a lot of sense given the current Bitcoin climate.


While some experts were quietly positive, suggesting that the price would be sitting at the US$800 mark – this figure seems conservative given the increase in Bitcoin over the past week in which it has climbed over 30%. The majority of experts who were willing to venture a guess thought that Bitcoin would be worth more than US$1,000, with several experts placing the value between US$2,000 and US$5,000.

Of special interest were predictions by Sam Cole from KnCMiner who said:

“Large financial players are entering the market this year. I am talking to some of them. If they are to become involved they need the coin to be valued at around US$2,000 to US$3,000… So I am predicting around US$2,000 to US$3,000.”

Interestingly, Dr. Marco Krohn from Genesis Mining suggested the same figure of US$2,000 to US$3,000. What is it that miners know that the rest of us don’t? It seems they are expecting a second Bitcoin rush this year.

This point of view was supported by Bitcoin investor Trace Mayer who believes the latest innovations in the cryptocurrency will enable Wall Street to come into Bitcoin which will push the price up “significantly higher.”

However, while many are placing their bets on an increasingly valuable coin, members of the Bitcoin Foundation emphasised that for Bitcoin’s long term success, the price is largely irrelevant. Jinyoung Lee Englund from the foundation observed that:

“It is like an early stage tech-startup, price isn’t a measure of success… What is a measure of success is the mass consumer and merchant uptake. One of the merchant payment processors, have signed over 26,000 merchants.”

Dotsub’s David Orban believes that the price is going up but also emphasised that price wasn’t everything:

“Announcements in the space will drive the price up, but rather than concentrating on exchange rates we need to focus on applications that give value to Bitcoin.”

However, some were more bearish on Bitcoin’s growth. Bobby Lee from BTC China, who has been hit with uncertainties over regulation in China, offered a much more modest price, suggesting that it would be over US$500.

In the meantime, be sure to watch Cointelegraph’s exclusive interviews and decide for yourself who makes the best case and then wait to see what presents Bitcoin will bring you this holiday season.

Sponsors are welcome to offer a prize for the best prediction, please contact: drop@cointelegraph.com