The multimillionaire John McAfee, founder of the popular antivirus and defender of blockchain technology and Bitcoin on multiple occasions, has doubled his bet and this time in a very peculiar way.
In his Twitter account, the 72-year-old computer scientist said that Bitcoin could reach $1,000,000 in 2020, saying that when he predicted the value of Bitcoin at $500,000 thousand by the end of 2020, it was based on the presumption that Bitcoin would reach only $5,000 by the end of this year, and as it has already passed the barrier, he predicts that by the end of 2020 the Bitcoin will have a value of $1,000,000. Such is the confidence that McAfee has in his prediction that he said he would cut and eat his own manhood on national television if his prediction was not fulfilled. This Wednesday he reiterated that if his new prediction does not come true, he will fulfill this promise.
When I predicted Bitcoin at $500,000 by the end of 2020, it used a model that predicted $5,000 at the end of 2017. BTC has accelerated much faster than my model assumptions. I now predict Bircoin at $1 million by the end of 2020. I will still eat my dick if wrong. pic.twitter.com/WVx3E71nyD
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) November 29, 2017
He justified his prediction based on the fact that only a total of 21 million coins will be mined and that there are only 2 billion people working on this in the world, and he indicated the following table to calculate the final value of each coin: “(average of individual economic productivity) x (number of productive people) ÷ (12 million – total number of coins) = Bitcoin value”.
There are only 21 million Bitcoins. There are 2 billion working people in the world. Final Bitcoin value = (average individual economic productivity) × (number of productive people) ÷ (21 million). A GROSS simplification, but the answers is in the tens of billions $ per coin.
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) November 30, 2017
McAfee has also predicted that fiat money will not exist in 5 years, just like it happened with buggy whip manufacturers when the automobile was invented and the previous type of transport was abandoned for a better one, which at that time decreased the transportation cost and time.
There will be no fiat in five years. 5 years after the invention of the automobile, 90% of buggy whip manufacturers had closed shop. This new paradigm has to work faster than that.
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) November 30, 2017
Bitcoin has received a great number of accusations from personalities and financial authorities around the world of being a fraud or a financial bubble that will sooner or later explode, in addition to being used to carry out illicit transactions, so McAfee has been in charge of defending it for several years, since, for him, this term can only be applied when talking about fiat money. Being that McAfee has been a strong supporter of the cryptocurrency movement, he openly supports the business and tweets about it, just this past week he used the analogy between the birth of the cryptocurrencies and the invention of the automobile, when people shouted at them to the visionaries who bought a horse, he wrote on his twitter: “people: sell your horses!”.
Bitcoin has created a new paradigm of unprecedented scale, and the backlash against it is also unprecedented. "Bubble, "Scam", "Shitcoin", "Scheme", and other derogetories are like "GET A HORSE" laughingly shouted at new owners of the first automobile. People: sell your horses!
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) November 29, 2017
McAfee hasn’t only defended Bitcoin, yesterday he also tweeted about Zcash (ZEC), Monero (XMR) and Verge (XVG), commenting that many people have asked his opinion on those coins, to which he replied back by saying that he would bet on ZEC, XMR and XVG for the long run, since those are based on privacy and anonymous transactions.
I am inundated by people asking me for recommendations on cryptocurrencies. If you would use your heads you would figure out that the privacy coins (anonymous transactions) will have the greatest future. Coins like Monero (XMR), Verge (XVG), or Zcash (ZEC) cannot lose.
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) December 13, 2017
Additionally, the author of self-help books and American venture capitalist James Altucher, said in an interview that he agrees with the prediction of McAfee, because in his opinion, the fact that there are 15 million millionaires in the world will make the value of the cryptocurrency increase, since all the financial advisers will recommend Bitcoin as a sustainable investment method.