Tim Draper hedges $250,000 Bitcoin price call

Billionaire investor Tim Draper once famously said that Bitcoin’s price would reach $250,000 by 2022 and this week he returned to the predictions game, in slightly more cautious mode.

During an interview with Yahoo! Finance, he said: “$250,000 by 2022, and I’m hedging a little, maybe Q1 2023. It may be Q1 2023, but it will be [$250,000] before that.”

“You know it’s interesting, it (Bitcoin) has consolidated more than I thought it would,” Draper added. “I thought there would be many more competitors at this point that were really relevant, but people have consolidated toward Bitcoin because it’s decentralised and that’s why they get the flack at Facebook for being a centralised currency.”

Starbucks

By 2022, people will routinely use Bitcoin in everyday transactions such as buying coffee at Starbucks, Draper claimed earlier this year.

In a podcast interview on NBC Bay Area’s “Sand Hill Road,” he said: “Bitcoin is one of the greatest technological advances that humanity has ever seen and it can make a bigger change in society than any of us ever imagined.”

He added: “I think when you go to Starbucks to buy a cup of coffee, and you try to pay with dollars, they will laugh at you because you are not using Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency…It will be like the old lady paying out with pennies.”

But if, as predicted by Draper, a single Bitcoin will be worth $250,000, how can it ever hope to cross over to the mainstream?

“Is that a problem?” he responded. “That’s a temporary problem. There is a market for Bitcoin right now. People are buying and selling it and they are buying and selling things and services with it. As it spreads, it will go up in value. And it is spreading.”