Bitcoin has led the crypto craze in 2024, performing extremely well and turning heads across the financial sector. The price has continued to rise, and many do not see the bullish momentum ending anytime soon. As exchange-traded funds (ETFs) continue to bring inflows and the upcoming halving potentially serves as a further catalyst, the future outlook for Bitcoin looks promising.
A huge number of people have invested in Bitcoin. There are over 50 million Bitcoin wallets with a nonzero balance, and Bitcoin ETFs mean that this number could be even higher.With Bitcoin’s dominance in 2024, many are looking at the token more as a prospective investment and less as a store of value. After a huge run and setting new highs in 2024, some investors are simply looking for a quick profit on a trade of Bitcoin. This contrasts slightly from the previous bull market in 2020 and 2021. At that time, many saw Bitcoin as a way to hedge against high inflation and as a store of value because of its unique token supply system.
Bitcoin’s supply is constantly increasing as new tokens are given to miners who verify transactions. However, the amount of tokens given each day will continue to be cut in half every four years in a process known as a halving. This means that the token supply is increasing at a slowing rate, contrasting traditional money supplies, which generally increase exponentially.
Bitcoin has strong deflationary properties in terms of token supply that can help the price appreciate faster than inflation. This allows Bitcoin owners to potentially hold an asset that gains buying power over time. This is the essence of Bitcoin as a store of value, as opposed to a speculative investment.
Bitcoin fans hold it precisely for this reason. They believe that the buying power of Bitcoin will continue to increase over time. They also see a path for large-scale Bitcoin adoption, meaning that they could eventually make all of their purchases with Bitcoin.
To back up these ideas, there are a few metrics that deal with the buying power of Bitcoin over time. In particular, a post on X from user @IIICapital recently went viral for showing the median U.S. house price in terms of BTC:
2012 – 50,616 BTC
2013 – 19,127 BTC
2014 – 351 BTC
2015 – 901 BTC
2016 – 697 BTC
2017 – 323 BTC
2018 – 24 BTC
2019 – 84 BTC
2020 – 46 BTC
2021 – 10 BTC
2022 – 20 BTC
2023 – 14 BTC
2024 – 7 BTC
For reference, the median house in 2012 cost around $240,000, while Bitcoin’s low in 2012 was around $4.70, leading to about 50,000 BTC per house. In 2024, the median house price is just under $420,000, while Bitcoin recently surpassed $70,000. At that price, the median house is worth six Bitcoin.
The data is a bit skewed, using yearly lows in Bitcoin during the early years to inflate the number of Bitcoin per house slightly, but the data is accurate.
If you had put a few dollars in Bitcoin in 2012, you could now afford a house priced at more than $450,000. This deflationary aspect of Bitcoin is a key reason that HODLers continue to buy the token.
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