Some of you may have seen an earlier post by me that predicted the date when your stash of bitcoins could be worth $1 million. Obviously, the more bitcoins you own, the faster it could go. Today's price action just moved everybody that much closer, so it's time to update the table.
The previous blog predicted that people who own 150 bitcoins would become a bitcoin millionaire on 2nd November 2017 if the bitcoin price hit $6667. 
The good news is that people with only one bitcoin now need to wait just over two years before it's worth a $1 million.
Today, the bitcoin price surged from around $6000 to over $7000 (in European time).
Previously in July this year, I produced the below chart forecasting future bitcoin prices. It uses similar maths of using a rolling average of past growth rates to predict future growth rates. So far it has been virtually spot on.
I had a couple of comments that most people own much less than 1 bitcoins, so I have re-done the table below starting at 0.1 bitcoins and using smaller increments.
The table makes one main assumption - which may turn out differently. The assumption is that the average rate of price growth seen in 2017 will be repeated in the future. Of course it may actually be higher or lower.
We started the year with a bitcoin price of $963.66, and currently it is around $7'000. That translates into a daily compound growth rate of 0.650%. (You can see how to calculate this in the formulas below the table). I have therefore assumed to today's bitcoin price will grow by the same daily percentage in the future.
Whether or not this turns out to be true is anyone's guess. Most people would say that 2017 was exceptional and won't be repeated.
Exceptional? The bitcoin price already performed better than that in 2011 and 2013. Anything is possible!
The results in this table are different from the one previously produced. Why?
Answer: Because more days have passed since the start of the year, and because the bitcoin price is higher. This produces a higher bitcoin growth rate for 2017.
Anyone who has read my blog this far, please include the word "hodl" in any comment you make, to be sure of a a good upvote and reward from me.
If you are interested in the mathematics behind the table, you will find it under the table below.
Instruction: Look up how many bitcoins you currently own in the first column. Your millionaire date is in the 4th column.
Formulas
In my formulas, I take today's date of 2nd October 2017 and today's bitcoin price of $7'000.
- What price do you need? Formula: $1 million/number of coins you own
- How long do you need to wait? Formula: N=log(FV/PV)/log(1+i) where FV= $1 million, PV= value of your bitcoins today and i is derivived from the following formula: i=(FV/PV)^(1/N)−1 where FV is today's bitcoin price of $7000, PV is the bitcoin price at the start of 2107, i.e. $963.66, and N=today()-date(2016,12,31).
- Expected Date: Today()+N, where N is the number of days derived in (2) above.
For those interested how a longer term price projection would look, here is the same chart extended until 2020, when the price reaches $10 million per bitcoin. (Believe it, or not, at your leisure). If that happened, then the 21 million bitcoins would be worth $210 trillion (market cap), which is equivalent to around $26'750 for every person alive on the planet, or 10 times the US national debt.
Longer term bitcoin price projection
Disclaimer
This is for fun only. It is not financial advice. The future growth rate may be different from that derived by looking at the past. In fact lots of things could even cause the price of bitcoin to fall to, or near to, zero, or there may be no market at all. It is after all, nothing but a series of digits in the ether that you can't eat or even use for firewood. Don't invest more money than you would be willing to completely lose. Imagine you are betting on a three-legged donkey, or a fat greyhound. How much would you risk?
Will your spouse divorce you and the kids hate you if the price plunges 50% tomorrow? If the answer is "Yes", then bitcoin is not for you.