In Brief In a time of financial instability, many individuals are turning to the decentralized bitcoin to store their wealth. Due to this as well as its potential to revolutionize the finance system, bitcoin has enjoyed stratospheric growth in recent years. Modern Gold

Tom Lee, a Wall Street strategist who works at Fundstrat, has predictedthat the price of bitcoin will continue its exponential rise until it reaches $55,000 by 2022. He bases his prediction on the economic principles of scarcity and market instability.

Lee argues, essentially, that bitcoin is subsuming the role that gold previousplayed in the economy. It has become a solid and dependable store of wealth in a time when we have seen recessions and market turbulence effecting peoples savings in their own currency. This is particularly the case in countries where the government controls the currency to achieve a desired effect, as is the case in China and Japan.

Many have criticized bitcoin for its turbulence it has now reached a volatility of 75 percent and argue that, for this reason, it cannot be the safe store of value that Lee sees it as. Lee, though, told Coin Telegraph that golds volatility approached 90 percent from 1971 to 1980 as the U.S. abandoned the gold standard hence, we expect this [bitcoins volatility] to improve over time. Coincidentally, bitcoin exceeded the value of gold earlier this year.

Bitcoins rise has been so meteorotic that it is quite unlike any other currency or asset, depending on who you ask in recent memory. To give a quirky example, in May of 2010, a developer bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoin. These, in total,would now be worth around $25 million, which is enough to buy a 720-year-old Magna Carta given that one sold for$21 million in 2007.

Bitcoin arguably lead the vanguard for cryptocurrenies moving from a quirky financial system in tight-knit tech communities to a talking point for major financial planners. It is now fundamentally changing the way we look at economiesin addition tobeing the leading example of blockchain technology.Simon Taylor, co-founder of a blockchain venture capital fund,said in an interview with Government Office for Science that the techbrings us near instant asset transfer, asset movement, and security of data movement, and that blockchainwill have a similar effect on exchange that the internet did on communication.

Bitcoin has now become large enough for entire countries to consider upending transaction systems that have been in place since the advent of currency itself.India and Sweden in particular are looking to mimic the systems to produce the first cashless societies in modern history. This is perhaps the ultimate testament to how significant the cryptocurrencyhas become.

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Wall Street Expert Predicts Bitcoin Will Reach $55,000 in 5 Years - Futurism