“Bitcoin is better than currency.” - Bill Gates

IF YOU BOUGHT $5 OF BITCOIN 7 YEARS AGO, YOU’D BE $4.4 MILLION RICHER

Monday marked the seventh anniversary of what is said to be the first recorded instance of Bitcoins being used in a real-world transaction. Over the course of seven years, Bitcoin's value has multiplied 879,999 times. If an investor had decided to spend five dollars on about 2,000 Bitcoins back then, that stake would be worth $4.4 million today. With $1,200 spent on some 480,000 Bitcoins, the investor would be worth at least $1.1 billion today.

Bloomberg interview with Bill Gates. “Bitcoin is the answer.”

At first, Bitcoin didn’t really catch on, and it was solely the domain of the early adopters. There were very few businesses which accepted bitcoin as a payment method, and it was something which was almost frowned upon by most governments. As more and more businesses and governments accepted bitcoin, it gradually went up in value, more and more people were starting to embrace the idea of a decentralized currency, and as more people jumped on board, the price began to rise. Since the beginning of the year 2017, the value of Bitcoin spiked after gaining legitimacy in countries like Japan.

“Bitcoin is better than currency.” - Bill Gates

The main advantage of bitcoin is that it is decentralized – meaning, there’s no central bank or government which controls it. This freedom is one of the reasons why Investors have come to see the currency as something of a safe-haven-asset in a problematic geopolitical world — and there's been plenty of that in recent months in Europe, Russia, Brazil and the United States. There is also an additional advantage in Bitcoin – there is a mathematical limitation to the number of Bitcoins that can be created, which means – no printing money, so the rules of economy work perfectly. Where there is a limited supply of something, and the demand goes up, the price goes up along with it.

Wences Casares has been called Bitcoin’s “patient zero” by the Silicon Valley elite. He got Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman, and countless other luminaries into Bitcoin at gatherings of the rich and famous such as Sun Valley.

Billionaire businessman Wences Casares says it’s not too late for people interested in Bitcoin.

The Argentinian-born Casares has founded an internet service provider, a video game company, and a bank, plus he sits on the board of PayPal, but it’s Bitcoin that Casares says he’s dedicating the rest of his life to, and he now runs a startup called Xapo that stores Bitcoin. At a dinner organized by the cryptocurrency policy group Coin Center in New York last night, Casares delivered the keynote speech, including some advice about how to get into Bitcoin.

The formula, according to Casares? Take 1% or less of what you own, invest in Bitcoin with it, and then forget about it for at least the next five years; ideally the next decade. “You either lose one percent of your net worth, which most people can take, or you make millions.” he told a room of cryptocurrency advocates at the Westin in Times Square.

Experts such as Wence Casares predict a single Bitcoin will be worth $500,000 by the year 2030.

Casares pegs the odds of bitcoin failing completely and going to zero dollars at 20%. “If it fails, it will be worthless,” he says. “If it succeeds, in five to seven years a single Bitcoin will be worth more than a million dollars.” He puts the chances of success at greater than 50%.

He said he’s seen people who bought bitcoin at cheap prices—as low as $13 and sold their holdings too quickly, and therefore lost the potential to earn a lot of money, while those who bought at high prices even just a month ago have done “spectacularly well” by simply buying and holding.