Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC)–Cryptocurrency advocate and Bitcoin bull Tim Draper has remained true to his nature by sticking with his prediction that BTC will reach $250,000 by the year 2022.

 

Speaking during a panel discussion at the Web Summit conference on November 6, Draper reiterated his stance that BTC, despite 2018 being a down year for cryptocurrency, will achieve a valuation of a quarter million dollars by the end of 2022. Draper originally proposed the prediction back in April of this year, in the midst of a market slide but not to the current degree of loss experienced by Bitcoin and the altcoin market. Draper’s comments at the time were self-aware, with the venture capital investor admitting that most people would look at his figure with skepticism,

“Believe it, it’s going to happen – they’re going to think you’re crazy but believe it, it’s happening, it’s going to be awesome!”

 

While many have looked upon Draper’s position as hyping the currency he is most bullish about, he has managed to correctly predict BTC price movement in the past. In 2014, when the price of BTC crashed from above $1100 to below $320, similar to the current precipitous fall in value experienced throughout 2018, Draper remained bullish on the original cryptocurrency and made the prediction that BTC would surpass $10,000 by the end of 2017–a claim that was proven true in November of last year.

When asked at the Web Summit earlier this week about how he viewed his $250k prediction in light of the crashing crypto markets which are only just beginning to stabilize in price, Draper held to his belief that Bitcoin would find a way to gain exponential leaps in market capitalization over the next four years,

 

“Yes. We are talking […] about five percent market share to get to $250,000. That seems like a drop in a bucket and all we need to really do is make it so that Bitcoin can be used to buy Starbucks coffee, and all of a sudden the world just opens up and then they say ‘I’ve got this choice.’ […] Do I want a currency that I can take from country to country […] or do I want one that sticks me in one country or one geographic area and I can’t use it anywhere else?”

Draper went on to take digs at traditional fiat currencies, calling them “political currencies” and questioning whether they had place in a world where crypto could make them obsolete. Calling upon the libertarian and decentralized values so entwined with the ethos of cryptocurrency, Draper took a jab at the U.S. dollar and other fiat currencies, saying,

“Why do we even trust currencies that are determined by some weird political party or another?”

 

In addition, Draper pointed out the problematic aspect of free-printing by banks and governments, and how they could take value from a currency at any point–a reality that has become all too familiar for citizens of Venezuela struggling to get by under the crushing inflation of the bolivar. In Draper’s eyes, the emergence of cryptocurrency provides an apolitical currency molded by a free market that allows money to be in control of common people, as opposed to banks.

Already we have seen the impact of cryptocurrency in a landscape with a non-functioning currency, as more and more people turn to DASH and Bitcoin as a more stable and usable alternative to their native currency destroyed by inflation and the incompetence of their government’s fiscal policy.