Shock survey suggests most investors think Bitcoin won’t top $50K by 2030

British Virgin Islands-based institutional mining platform, Genesis Mining, has published the findings from a survey of 1,000 current and former U.S.-based Bitcoin investors — two-thirds of whom believe BTC is a better long-term store of value than the dollar.

More than half of respondents believe Bitcoin will beat out gold, real estate, and the stock market over the five to 10 years, with 65% expressing faith that BTC’s value will continue to appreciate with time.

The bear case

But despite the apparently favorable sentiment, just 17% of those surveyed predicted that Bitcoin’s price would exceed $50,000 by 2030. This would only require the price to increase by 160% over the next 10 years, while BTC has already gained 166.5% during 2020 so far.

A further 17% predicted that Bitcoin’s price would actually fall over the next decade, while one sixth of respondents did not feel confident in speculating on BTC’s long-term price performance.

In total 50.1% of respondents estimated that BTC will be worth $20,000 or less by 2030, one third predicted the price will be $10,000 or less, and 11.8% forecasted prices below $1,001.

Almost one-third of respondents who predict a stagnate or bearish 10-year performance expect Bitcoin to be hindered by regulations, while one fifth anticipate outright bans on cryptocurrency from governments.

Roughly 17% of non-bullish respondents expect another cryptocurrency or a central-bank issued digital currency will capture a dominant market share and supersede BTC, while 16% predict Bitcoin’s historical meteoric hype-cycles will die down over time. Nearly 10% of participants do not believe “there is going to be a practical use case” for Bitcoin in future.

The bull case

On the bullish end of the spectrum, one-tenth tipped Bitcoin would be worth six-figures or more in a decade, with half of them expecting prices exceeding $500,000. 

Almost 30% of bullish respondents believe Bitcoin adoption will be driven by declining trust in fiat currencies, with 25.8% anticipating “a major economic depression” will spark widespread adoption. More than half of respondents believe, “Bitcoin adoption has much room for growth” regardless of political forces external to crypto.

Who was surveyed

The survey had a good mix of investors, with one quarter allocating more than half their wealth to virtual currency investments, one quarter had crypto exposure of between 10% to 50%, another quarter had between 1% and 10% in crypto, while the rest had 1% or less of their wealth currently in virtual currency.

A recent survey from fund manager Grayscale Investments found that the COVID-19 pandemic had a positive impact on Bitcoin sentiment, with 39% of respondents describing BTC as “more appealing” amid the pandemic.

Last month, a survey of 700 high-net-worth individuals published by deVere Group found that 73% of millionaires either already own or are planning to invest in crypto assets by 2023.