Bitcoin Price Prediction 2030–2050 | What Will Bitcoin Be Worth in 2030?

The very first cryptocurrency, bitcoin (BTC), still has the largest market capitalisation in the crypto market as of 18 April 2023. 

Bitcoin has moved beyond being a peer-to-peer version of electronic cash to becoming a store of value and a potential hedge against inflation. 

In 2021, BTC’s value grew from $29,374.15 on 1 January to $46,306.45 on 31 December, managing to surpass the $60,000 mark twice, most notably when it reached its all-time high of $68,789.63 on 10 November that year. 

Live Bitcoin (BTC) Price Chart

While the cryptocurrency fell over 60% in 2022 amid wider investor sentiment shift, the new year has provided some potential grounds for optimism as the token broke through the $25,000 mark to trade $29,159.90 – its highest price in nine months – on 30 March 2023.  

So far in 2023, BTC has settled over $20,000, gaining more than 60% from its 2022 year-end price of $16,547.50 since the start of the year at the time of writing (18 April 2023) amid expected slowing of US Federal Reserve’s (Fed) interest rate hikes. 

Will bitcoin go up in the long term, and what is the bitcoin price prediction for 2030 and beyond? 

Will BTC volatility continue in 2023?

The BTC price hit two-year lows in November 2022, amid the wider turbulence in cryptocurrency markets that followed the collapse of FTX crypto exchange. Although BTC has recovered some losses in 2023, it’s still a far cry from its record price, set less than 18 months ago. . 

AJ Bell’s head of investment analysis Laith Khalaf pointed out that over the past ten years Bitcoin investors enjoyed the highest returns among other assets, with £1,000 invested in 2013 growing to over £1.6m today.

He said: “Those who have sat out the crypto craze can console themselves with the fact that the number of Bitcoin believers who have captured the full ten-year return is probably as small as that number is large.

“Ten years ago, Bitcoin was little known, and even the very early crypto buyers would have had to watch their investment double in value 12 times to the peak in 2021, without cashing in any profits, in order to harvest the full ten-year return. They would also have had to casually sit by and not press the intense panic button as their investment fell by 73% in 2018.”

VP Capital founder Viktor Prokopenya also noted that cryptocurrency markets reward patient investors who can withstand the inherent market volatility.

In an interview with Crypto Investor, he said: “I have seen this volatility play out before. In 2017, the value of bitcoin fell from $20,000 to $3,000.

“Now, with the war in Ukraine and rising inflation, we are witnessing instability across all asset classes. Seasoned investors will ride out this volatility, understanding that the market will bounce back.”

After the collapse of Terra’s LUNA crypto and  its UST stablecoin in May 2022 and the following fall of the BTC price, Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital, commented:

“It’s important to understand that volatility is likely to continue and the macro situation is going to remain challenging. There is no cavalry coming to drive a V-shaped recovery.”

Novogratz believed that cryptocurrencies would not disappear and that the community would stay resilient. However, he added:

“This does not mean the crypto market will bottom and head straight back up. It will take restructuring, a redemption cycle, consolidation and renewed confidence in crypto. Crypto moves in cycles, and we just witnessed a big one.”

Novogratz also warned that “​​picking bottoms is dangerous and if you do, scale in slowly”.

Will halving boost BTC price again?

Bitcoin has a maximum supply of 21 million tokens. As of 18 April 2023, there were 19,349,456 BTC in circulation. 

In order to reduce the rate at which new bitcoins are issued, the cryptocurrency was designed to undergo halving events roughly every four years. The events reduce the number of tokens released into circulation by halving their supply and making the token scarcer, thus raising its value.

Research conducted by Capital.com showed that the value of BTC has enjoyed a bull market lasting between 12 and 15 months after each halving event occurred. The past three halving events that took place in 2012, 2016, and 2020 saw the BTC price surge by 9,915%, 2,949%, and 665% respectively.

The next Bitcoin halving event is said to take place on April 2024.

Halvings tend to create buzz and excitement in crypto circles, but do they necessarily mean that bitcoin’s future price will rally?

A spokesperson for Capital.com’s data team said: “From a historical perspective, every next halving pushes the BTC price surge a little lower, meaning that the effect of bitcoin halving may be winding down. That doesn’t mean that the halving won’t drive the price up; however, its impact is notably decreasing every four years.”

Bitcoin’s fifth and sixth halving events, which are set to take place in 2028 and 2032, and the halving cycle around them, could be factors shaping the bitcoin price prediction 2030. 

Joe Burnett, a mining analyst at Blockware Solutions, believed bitcoin’s halving sessions could be good for its future price projections. He said: “Over the long run, bitcoin gets programmatically more scarce… The final 1,000,000 BTC [tokens] won’t all be mined until around 2140 – over 100 years away. This ever-increasing scarcity will be a large driver for the future price of bitcoin, as market participants search for tools to preserve their wealth.”

Other factors shaping a BTC price prediction 

At the beginning of 2020, the total global cryptocurrency market cap stood at around $191bn. The crypto market peaked at $2.9trn in November 2021, and at the time of writing is hovering around the $516bn mark.

The Global Wealth 2022 report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) stated that “crypto assets reached a market cap of over $2trn at the end of December 2021, a figure larger than the gross domestic product of Canada. Our forecasts suggest that this value could grow four to five times bigger before the end of the decade, despite recent bearish sentiment”. 

The report continued: 

“Non-traditional wealth managers currently manage as much as $0.8trn to $1.0trn in crypto-related wealth. That’s a significant amount of value up for grabs, representing roughly 2% to 3% of total wealth AUM (asset under management) as of 2021. In addition, crypto has the potential to deliver attractive revenue margins. For example, in 2021, the cryptonative platform BlockFi earned three to five times as much revenue per dollar in AUM as a typical private bank did.”

Should these figures bear themselves out, we could see the mass adoption and normalisation of cryptocurrencies in the financial world.

Positive developments in the 2021 BTC cryptocurrency market included the adoption of BTC as legal tender by El Salvador in early September and the launch of the bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (ETF) in October.

The first ever bitcoin-linked ETF offered retail investors diversification, protection, and liquidity, and a new way to get involved in the rapidly growing world of cryptocurrencies.

DailyFX analyst Tammy Da Costa said, while BTC remained the “father” of cryptocurrencies, it could face much greater competition from the second-largest cryptocurrency, ether (ETH). She told Capital.com:

“Due to the nature of the blockchains, the Ethereum blockchain is a more environmentally friendly option, and the unlimited supply of coins makes it a more feasible option for governments that are embracing the concept of digital assets as a potential medium of exchange, provided that there is regulatory oversight.”

Rising adoption rates could bode well for bitcoin’s…