[Aug] Bitcoin Forecast for 2017

So now that the forking drama has ended let’s do some crystal ball gazing for the price of Bitcoin in 2017 in terms of Indian rupee.

For the reference of historical price data, we are using the numbers from Zebpay – the most popular Bitcoin exchange in India.

Short term Bitcoin Average

Considering the fork drama has ended, the demand for Bitcoin is more likely to surge among institutional investors (from a global standpoint). If Goldman Sachs is forecasting the price of Bitcoin to reach $3915 very soon then it is indicating that the big daddies of the world are using Bitcoin as a hedge instrument. And when the whales are betting huge on it, it’s a gold rush for everyone. Let this version be a highly optimistic stance to our forecast, so by the end of September we might see an ATH [All Time High] of 1BTC ~ INR 2.49Lacs. Current price (at the moment of publishing) is INR 1,82,889. That means a profit of approx INR 70,000/BTC in flat 50 days! This scenario should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Medium term Bitcoin Average

In the event of volatility expected due to the birth of the new coin (cause of hard fork) called Bitcoin Cash, at the moment it’s already trading as the #4 cryptocurrency in terms of market cap.

The race for the utility of a cryptocurrency at a huge scale is proposing a challenge from the alternate currencies such as Ripple and Litecoin from an institutional and mass level adoption respectively. While Bitcoin will remain the “Digital Gold” for the world and we might not see speculative gains for Bitcoin however the rising alternate cryptocurrencies possess a huge potential in short term profit maximization. At the same time we also need to keep in mind that the base currency to trade in alternate currencies is still Bitcoin hence it will only be on an upswing on the long term.

Hence a steady positive growth might see the price of 1BTC ~ INR 3,34,355 come November. A medium term conservative forecast might make you richer by approx. INR 182,000/unit (considering the price at the time of publishing) if you bought a BTC today!

Long term Bitcoin Average

The uncertainty on the long term view of Bitcoin in India is sitting atop high at this point of time. Two strong reasons for this:

1. Indian Government Is Still In Power Struggle Regarding Cryptocurrencies
2. Indian Bitcoin exchanges cannot be trusted. For those of whom who owned a Bitcoin on any exchange, you are deemed to get the possible equivalent coins for Bitcoin Cash (BCC) equivalent to your Bitcoin (BTC) holdings. If you had 1 BTC on Zebpay today, you are liable to receive 1 BCC (Bitcoin Cash) due to the hard fork. And mind you today’s price of 1BCC = $433 (at the time of publishing). Read more here: All Major Indian Exchanges Bitcoins Reject Bitcoin Cash Completely  

Aforementioned point no.2 is highly critical for consumer confidence which will take a downturn as far as we expect. Mind you Coinbase (USA’s #1 Bitcoin exchange) was taken by an online storm by all the Coinbase users where they colluded together to take a class action lawsuit if Coinbase does not provide them the free BCC’s basis the amount of BTC’s held by each user. Just today they succumbed to the pressure cause if the SEC gets involved, Coinbase knows it’s further trouble for them.

Similar incident happened with Poloniex (world’s largest crypto exchange) wherein they refused to deliver the free BCC to all users at first but then later succumbed to users’ pressure when they threatened to opt out of Poloniex completely. Think about this, Zebpay’s turnover was 2016-17 was INR 1200 Crores and considering most of the Indian’s store their BTC on the Zebpay’s wallet themselves [not sure if that’s a cold storage] they are now sitting on top of INR 1200 of free BCC cash as well [conspiracy theory here but highly possible] and this just goes unaccounted + this wealth is actually the wealth of Indian BTC holders!

Coming back to our long term forecast which is a very pessimistic yet realistic view of the same.

Even if there are strong regulatory hurdles and consumer confidence dips in the long run, we are expecting the price to hover around INR 2,30,000-2,35,000/BTC by end of year. That accounts for a profit of INR 50,000 by the end of year, which beats every other traditional indice you might want to compare it with be it the BSE, NSE, Gold, etc.

[Disclaimer: Bitcoin Wiser consistently advocates that investing and trading in cryptocurrencies is a very high risk area. The above information is purely indicative and should not be taken as an investment advise. Do your own research in the area of cryptocurrency and be responsible for your own money]