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Bitcoin is on the brink ofanother massive price surge that will take its value up to $100,000 (75,000) in 2020, according to the founder of the worlds most famous dark web marketplace.

Ross Ulbricht is currently serving a double life sentence in a US prison for creating the now defunct Silk Road, which was the first placebitcoin was used as a currency on a significant scale.

Following his arrest in October 2013, bitcoin experienced its first major price spike that saw it shoot from $100 to over $1,000 in a matter of months. After crashing back down to $175, it then went on another positive run in 2017 that took it close to $20,000 by the end of that year.

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Since then, bitcoin has tumbled once more, reaching below $4,000 at the start of 2019 before recovering to todays price of around $7,000. (At the time of his arrest six years ago, the FBI seized 144,000 bitcoins from Silk Road andUlbricht- worth just over $1 billion at current prices.)

Ulbrichtclaims he predicted both of these waves from his prison cell and believes another one is already building a prediction he says he is able to make without being swayed by day-to-day price movements and general market hubris his imprisonment shelters him from.

On 3 January, 2009, the genesis block of bitcoin appeared. It came less than a year after the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto detailed the cryptocurrency in a paper titled 'Bitcoin: A peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System'

Reuters

On 22 May, 2010, the first ever real-world bitcoin transaction took place. Lazlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins the equivalent of $90 million at today's prices

Lazlo Hanyecz

Bitcoin soon gained notoriety for its use on the dark web. The Silk Road marketplace, established in 2011, was the first of hundreds of sites to offer illegal drugs and services in exchange for bitcoin

On 29 October, 2013, the first ever bitcoin ATM was installed in a coffee shop in Vancouver, Canada. The machine allowed people to exchange bitcoins for cash

REUTERS/Dimitris Michalakis

The world's biggest bitcoin exchange, MtGox, filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 after losing almost 750,000 of its customers bitcoins. At the time, this was around 7 per cent of all bitcoins and the market inevitably crashed

Getty Images

In 2015, Australian police raided the home of Craig Wright after the entrepreneur claimed he was Satoshi Nakamoto. He later rescinded the claim

Getty Images

On 1 August, 2017, an unresolvable dispute within the bitcoin community saw the network split. The fork of bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology spawned a new cryptocurrency: Bitcoin cash

REUTERS

Towards the end of 2017, the price of bitcoin surged to almost $20,000. This represented a 1,300 per cent increase from its price at the start of the year

Reuters

On 3 January, 2009, the genesis block of bitcoin appeared. It came less than a year after the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto detailed the cryptocurrency in a paper titled 'Bitcoin: A peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System'

Reuters

On 22 May, 2010, the first ever real-world bitcoin transaction took place. Lazlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins the equivalent of $90 million at today's prices

Lazlo Hanyecz

Bitcoin soon gained notoriety for its use on the dark web. The Silk Road marketplace, established in 2011, was the first of hundreds of sites to offer illegal drugs and services in exchange for bitcoin

On 29 October, 2013, the first ever bitcoin ATM was installed in a coffee shop in Vancouver, Canada. The machine allowed people to exchange bitcoins for cash

REUTERS/Dimitris Michalakis

The world's biggest bitcoin exchange, MtGox, filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 after losing almost 750,000 of its customers bitcoins. At the time, this was around 7 per cent of all bitcoins and the market inevitably crashed

Getty Images

In 2015, Australian police raided the home of Craig Wright after the entrepreneur claimed he was Satoshi Nakamoto. He later rescinded the claim

Getty Images

On 1 August, 2017, an unresolvable dispute within the bitcoin community saw the network split. The fork of bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology spawned a new cryptocurrency: Bitcoin cash

REUTERS

Towards the end of 2017, the price of bitcoin surged to almost $20,000. This represented a 1,300 per cent increase from its price at the start of the year

Reuters

In a six-part blog published from letters he wrote inprison, Ulbrichtapplied a form of market analysis known as Elliott Wave Theory to predict new all-time highs for bitcoin.

The theory forecasts the highs and lows in financial market cycles by identifying extremes in investor psychology, which in the case of bitcoin appear to be far more tempormental compared to traditional markets due to the nacency of the cryptocurrency.

Ross Ulbricht, was sentenced to life in prison after a federal jury in Manhattan found him guilty in February of charges including conspiracy to commit drug trafficking, money laundering and computer hacking. (Reuters)

The principle posits that price movements in speculative markets are driven by investor expectation, which when combined with mass psychology can force prices artificially higher through a positive feedback loop of buyer optimism.

Looking at the previous price waves of bitcoin, Ulbricht puts the next big wave reaching between $93,000 and $109,000 before the 17 February, 2021. He notes that his speculation should be considered with appropriate scepticism.

We have a price target... of ~$100,000 some time in or near 2020, he wrote. However, there is no rule that market moves have to be proportional. This is just a patter we see unfolding that may or may not continue.

Go here to see the original:
Notorious dark web criminal makes $100k bitcoin price prediction from prison - The Independent