The digital currency rose to it highest value earlier this year, before crashing in April and May. Currently the cryptocurrency is worth £22,428.05 as of 5pm on July 19. But while the US dollar is still the most traded currency worldwide, experts believe Bitcoin will be able to surpass it within decades.
Joseph Raczynski, Thomson Reuters technologist and futurist, believes bitcoin will initially overtake the dollar by 2025 with a value of $150,000 (£109,593.75)
He said: “Some countries will leverage bitcoin as their primary currency of choice.
“With fixed circulation, ease of transfer, it will serve them well to move to a ‘bankless’ model inherent in this ecosystem.”
A Forbes panel, of which Mr Raczynski was a part of, predicted the digital coin will overtake the US dollar as the dominant form of finance by 2050.
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Lee Smales, University of Western Australia associate professor, told Forbes he does not expect Bitcoin to be the main form of global currency.
He said: “Ultimately I think bitcoin (and many other cryptocurrency assets) will lose out to central bank digital currencies—many of which will be live by the end of the decade.”
The panel warned the Bitcoin price could fall further in the coming months, but over the medium to long-term the panel made an average bitcoin price prediction of $318,000 at the end of 2025.
El Salvador adopted bitcoin as legal tender alongside the US dollar in a controversial economic experiment.
President Nayib Bukele’s law was passed on June 9, and will come into effect from September 7.
Every adult citizen in El Salvador will receive $30 worth of bitcoin when they download and register the government’s cryptocurrency app, with the President reassuring citizens using the coin will be “optional”.
Economist Carlos Acevedo, former president of El Salvador’s Central Reserve Bank (BCR), told the Inter Press Service: “I have the impression that this is an improvised decision, without any technical basis.”
Lawmakers in Paraguay also presented their own bitcoin bill, which does not go as far as El Salvador’s.
The bill states: “This is not a legal tender, this is a commodity and the purpose of the law is to regulate and control this industry.
“That is the base project that we really have today.”
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Bitcoin analysts and watchers have noted the coin is approaching the price drawdown it experienced in 2013.
That year, it plunged by 69 per cent from an all-time high before hitting a new record high 197 days after the first one.
As of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $30,759.45 (£22,499.18) with a price drop of -2.48 percent over 24 hours.
At the start of July, bitcoin traded as $35,842.83 (£26,217.45).
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