Leading Expert Says Bitcoin Will Soar Above $25,000 in 5 Years

Bitcoin's Rise

It has been almost a week since the latest historic Bitcoin price breakthrough, when the world's most popular cryptocurrency surged past $5,300, only to reach $5,800 just a few hours later. At time of writing, the price of the popular cryptocurrency has been hovering around $5,700 — up by more than $500 in 24 hours, and by $342 since last week.

Experts say the upward trend for Bitcoin will only continue: FundStrat Global Advisor co-founder Tom Lee believes the value of bitcoin could ultimately achieve a high of $25,000 in the next five years. Speaking to Business Insider for the first episode of their crypto-finance show "the bit," Lee explained that bitcoin could eventually replace gold as the standard of financial value.

"I think this next generation of young people view bitcoin as their store of value. And if it captures 5% of the gold market, it's worth at least $25,000 per unit," Lee said.

More Coins, More Value?

Bitcoin is like a social network, Lee said. The more engagement bitcoin has, the higher its value will rise. "And in the short-term, we think bitcoin will reach at least $6,000 by mid-2018," he added. That's actually a moderate estimate: Other experts have predicted it could hit $6,000 before the end of this year. Crypto coin mogul Mike Novogratz recently told CNBC he believes that bitcoin could reach  $10,000 by April 2018.

Lee also said that, the more cryptocurrencies there are (and there re currently some 630 crypto coins) the better it is for Bitcoin. "[W]hat we found in our research is that the more coins that are being issued, the more are using bitcoin as their master ledger, which means bitcoin's value is actually growing as there's more coins."

In any case, what's clear is that the price of Bitcoin will continue to go up, despite critics assertion that cryptocurrencies are just a fad or "bubble." To that end, Lee pointed out a basic but oft forgotten fact. "[W]hen people talk about bitcoin’s volatility today, they're forgetting that when we went off the dollar — the gold standard on the dollar, gold’s volatility for 4 years was about the same as bitcoin’s volatility today."

Disclosure: Several members of the Futurism team, including the editors of this piece, are personal investors in a number of cryptocurrency markets. Their personal investment perspectives have no impact on editorial content.