What Happened: Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream and the cryptographer behind Bitcoin’s (CRYPTO: BTC) Proof-of-Work mining algorithm, anticipates that the leading cryptocurrency’s price will reach $100,000 this year.
In a recent interview with Anthony Pompliano, Back said that after analyzing Bitcoin options prices, the price reaching $100,000 is still “quite possible” this year.
“The comparison I liked was the competitor to physical gold, because, in many ways, Bitcoin is a better physical gold,” he said.
“And so, you know, you can infer a kind of valuation from how many coins there, the current price of gold . Say that that value gets divided up and you come out into the hundreds of thousands…like maybe half a million even on that basis alone.”
Why It Matters: Back was one of the first people to own Bitcoin and one of the first two people to receive an email from Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
In 2014, he founded blockchain technology company Blockstream along with fellow Bitcoin protocol developers.
Only yesterday, the company announced that it successfully raised $210 million in Series B funding at a $3.2 billion valuation.
Blockstream also acquired Israeli Bitcoin mining hardware manufacturer Spondoolies for undisclosed terms.
What Else: Earlier this year, Blockstream teamed up with Jack Dorsey’s payments company Square Inc (NASDAQ: SQ) to launch an open-source renewable energy mining project as part of its Bitcoin Clean Energy Initiative.
At the time, Square invested $5 million in the company for the purpose of building a solar-powered Bitcoin mine.
Price Action: At press time, Bitcoin was trading at a price of $47,257, losing 0.72% over the past 24-hours.
Square shares were trading at $267, up 0.026% at press time.