Developer, Bitcoiner, Entrepreneur, Author of "The Truth About Bitcoin"

Sylvain Saurel

The first thing you need to understand is that Bitcoin has a fixed supply of 21 million units no matter what.

1 BTC of 2023 will still be worth 1 BTC in 21 million in 10 or 20 years.

This is an incredible guarantee that Bitcoin offers you with its protocol whose rules are constantly verified by all the nodes of the network. You too can become a node in the Bitcoin network and verify for yourself that the Bitcoin rules are constantly respected.

This allows you to constantly audit the Bitcoin network.

Don’t Trust, Verify, is not an empty word in the world of Bitcoin.

Therefore, Bitcoin is not volatile if you choose to use a Bitcoin Standard.

Obviously, I understood correctly that you are talking about the price of Bitcoin in fiat currency. You want to know why the price of Bitcoin will fluctuate in US dollars or Euros. You want to know why the price of Bitcoin expressed in these fiat currencies cannot be predicted.

The reason is simple.

When you express the price of Bitcoin in these fiat currencies, you suddenly consider Bitcoin an asset. Bitcoin is constantly traded on specialized platforms such as Coinbase, Kraken, Binance, etc.

On these platforms, the price of Bitcoin will respond to the laws governing the principle of supply and demand.

With more supply than demand, the price will fall. With more demand than available supply, the price will rise. Nothing is more logical. It’s the same operation with the stock market that you need to know.

The difference here is that there is never a halt to quotes in the world of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the only true free market in the world. From then on, the price of Bitcoin will tend to be more volatile, because the emotions of investors will be able to be fully expressed.

In the event of an event deemed positive, the price will skyrocket without anyone being able to put a stop to calm market participants. Same in reverse. We saw this in March 2020 when COVID-19 hit the world. The price of Bitcoin fell to around $3K in a few hours.

Only Bitcoiners of last resort were able to push the price of Bitcoin upwards. Yours truly was one of them at the time.

My advice is simple: don't try to predict what cannot be predicted. No one can predict the price of Bitcoin. Bitcoin also gives you no guarantee on its price.

The guarantees that Bitcoin gives you are linked to its protocol. This is a major difference to grasp in order to truly understand the why of Bitcoin. It is precisely the guarantees linked to the Bitcoin protocol that make me think that the price of Bitcoin will continue to increase in the future since Bitcoin meets major needs that more and more people will have in the future: the possibility of protecting the fruits of one's labor from inflation in a censorship-resistant manner.

But as always, I could be wrong, and it is up to you to form your own opinions on the why of Bitcoin and the future of Bitcoin.

The first thing you need to understand is that Bitcoin has a fixed supply of 21 million units no matter what.

1 BTC of 2023 will still be worth 1 BTC in 21 million in 10 or 20 years.

This is an incredible guarantee that Bitcoin offers you with its protocol whose rules are constantly verified by all the nodes of the network. You too can become a node in the Bitcoin network and verify for yourself that the Bitcoin rules are constantly respected.

This allows you to constantly audit the Bitcoin network.

Don’t Trust, Verify, is not an empty word in the world of Bitcoin.

Therefore, Bitcoin is not volatile if you choose to use a Bitcoin Standard.

Obviously, I understood correctly that you are talking about the price of Bitcoin in fiat currency. You want to know why the price of Bitcoin will fluctuate in US dollars or Euros. You want to know why the price of Bitcoin expressed in these fiat currencies cannot be predicted.

When you express the price of Bitcoin in these fiat currencies, you suddenly consider Bitcoin an asset. Bitcoin is constantly traded on specialized platforms such as Coinbase, Kraken, Binance, etc.

On these platforms, the price of Bitcoin will respond to the laws governing the principle of supply and demand.

With more supply than demand, the price will fall. With more demand than available supply, the price will rise. Nothing is more logical. It’s the same operation with the stock market that you need to know.

The difference here is that there is never a halt to quotes in the world of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the only true free market in the world. From then on, the price of Bitcoin will tend to be more volatile, because the emotions of investors will be able to be fully expressed.

In the event of an event deemed positive, the price will skyrocket without anyone being able to put a stop to calm market participants. Same in reverse. We saw this in March 2020 when COVID-19 hit the world. The price of Bitcoin fell to around $3K in a few hours.

Only Bitcoiners of last resort were able to push the price of Bitcoin upwards. Yours truly was one of them at the time.

My advice is simple: don't try to predict what cannot be predicted. No one can predict the price of Bitcoin. Bitcoin also gives you no guarantee on its price.

The guarantees that Bitcoin gives you are linked to its protocol. This is a major difference to grasp in order to truly understand the why of Bitcoin. It is precisely the guarantees linked to the Bitcoin protocol that make me think that the price of Bitcoin will continue to increase in the future since Bitcoin meets major needs that more and more people will have in the future: the possibility of protecting the fruits of one's labor from inflation in a censorship-resistant manner.

But as always, I could be wrong, and it is up to you to form your own opinions on the why of Bitcoin and the future of Bitcoin.

Sylvain Saurel

What influences the price of Bitcoin? Why is the price of Bitcoin so unpredictable?