So recently in the eCash telegram channel, there was quite a bit of arguing about how high people think the price of XEC can get, and how long it might take to get there. I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing since it implies people have high expectations for the project, but I also believe in the mantra, "if you are arguing, you are losing", which is why I'm not here to argue with anyone, but I thought it might be interesting for me to organize my own thoughts on the subject...

Before I continue, let me be clear that none of what I'm about to say is intended as financial advice but is entirely speculative and for informational and entertainment purposes only. Also, eCash represents a significant portion of my investment portfolio, so I obviously have high hopes for the project and I'd totally understand if anyone wants to dismiss anything I have to say on this topic. So please do your own research, don't invest more than you can afford to lose, and last but not least, don't blame others for your own investment decisions, because ultimately, whether you decide to invest in XEC or not is up to you and no one else.

I want to start by sharing a story. This was back in 2017, and I was thinking about buying Bitcoin for the first time, and you know one of the things that got me to finally push the buy button? A man by the name of John McAfee. For those of you who don't know, John McAfee was a programmer and businessman who founded McAfee Associates, the company that offered the first commercial anti-virus software. Fast forward a couple of decades, and John McAfee is now this big Bitcoin guy, and in 2017, he announced that it was mathematically guaranteed Bitcoin would reach $1M by the end of 2020, and if it didn't, he would cut off his own you know what and eat it on live TV. His prediction never came true, of course, and he has since passed away, rest in peace, but I'm guessing that his crazy prediction is what led to many people like myself discovering Bitcoin for the first time. Because honestly, had it not been for him, I might have never made the leap and bought my first Bitcoin, even if it was as the result of fomo.

Now I understand if you have a problem with John's antics. I also understand there are many who think talking about price and making price predictions is in poor taste, but that's where I disagree.

After all, for the vast majority of people, they see buying eCash or any other cryptocurrency as an investment, and why do people invest in anything? To make a return on their investment, of course. It's no different when investing in public companies, or private start-ups. I'm guessing when founders pitch their business to VCs, they have slides that show projected revenues and expenses, what the size of the market is, how much their business could be worth in the future, and so on. Even Satoshi himself alluded to it when he said "It might make sense just to get some in case it catches on." Then there was Hal Finney, whom many think might actually be Satoshi, who predicted that one day 1 Bitcoin could be worth up to $10M each.

I've heard people rebuke others for talking price targets, but I disagree with that approach. The truth of the matter is, we need people to buy into the eCash project in order for it to succeed, and I don't think Bitcoin could have gotten as far as it has if not for enticing people with the possibility of becoming rich. On top of all that, there's the fact that the entire Bitcoin protocol is backed by those same economic incentives and wouldn't exist otherwise.

I'm sure you've seen those tweets telling you how much money you would have made if you'd invested in this or that stock at the IPO. I just saw one the other day about Tesla, and how if you'd invested $10,000 in the IPO back in 2010, your shares would now be worth $2M. As impressive as a 200x return in 14 years may sound, crypto investors have seen crazier returns over the years. Those who bought Bitcoin or Ethereum in the early days of those projects aren't up 200x, they're up 10,000X or more. Who doesn't like the idea of risking $1000 to make $10 million dollars in less than 10 years. Well, that's exactly what crypto has made possible for some people.

Of course, if that's all there was to crypto, you'd be right to say it's nothing but a giant scam, the biggest ponzi scheme in history, and there are certainly projects in the space that fall into that category. But this is offset by the projects that are hard at work on creating real value in the world, and these are the projects that make it possible to fathom such astronomical returns, which brings us to the eCash project, or XEC.

Like many of you, I want eCash to change civilization as we know it, but in order to do that, I also believe the price of eCash will have to go up dramatically in the coming years to have any chance of accomplishing that. Not just because people want to make money, but because of simple logic. The goal of eCash is to replace state backed currencies like the dollar and the euro, and in order to do that, the value of eCash will have to go up dramatically if it's going to replace the value of those currencies.

So exactly how high do I think XEC can go? Do I think 1 XEC can reach $1? The answer is yes. Do I think it's going to happen within the next year or two? Of course not.

Let me start with why I think it can reach $1. If you look up the M1 money supply, which represents the value of all the currency in the world, along with the money sitting in people's checking and savings accounts, you'll see it's valued at about $18 trillion dollars. Since the total supply of XEC is likely less than 18 trillion if you consider the number of coins that have been lost, this means that if eCash were to one day become the money of the world, it's reasonable to conceive it one day reaching parity with today's dollar.

How long that will take is anyone's guess, of course. But I think the eCash project has what it takes to fulfill that mission. From a strong developer team, to a growing community, and last but not least, a culture that prioritizes building above everything else.

If you're unfamiliar with the eCash project, it's a fork of Bitcoin Cash, and therefore a fork of Bitcoin. But whereas BTC and BCH have eight decimal places, the eCash project changed the base unit from 100M satoshis to 100 satoshis, moving the decimal point over by six spots. This is why even though price of 1 XEC is $0.000035, if you multiply that by a million, you get $35. For reference, if XEC reaches $1, that's the equivalent of 1 BTC or BCH reaching $1M dollars.

I know it may be a little complicated for some people, so I want to reiterate this point since many people seem to discover eCash and get thrown off by the total supply of 21T coins. The truth is, the total amount of XEC in circulation is the same as that of BTC and BCH, which have a total supply of 21M coins. If you multiply that by a million, you get 21T, and it's not that the total number of coins has been increased, but that the base unit of 1 XEC was reduced from 100M to 100. Hopefully that makes sense to you, but if not, I suggest you do your research until it does make sense.

So with all that said, what would I say is a realistic target price for XEC this cycle? My best guess is that it will reach anywhere from a low estimate of $0.001 to a higher estimate of $0.004 for 1 XEC, or $1000 to $4000 for 1 million XEC. This would also represents approximately a 30x to 100x from here.

Now you might be asking yourself how I came up with those numbers. I didn't just pull them out of a hat if that's what you're thinking. Basically, I'm basing them on previous cycles for some other well known crpytocurrencies. And while I acknowledge that this doesn't mean eCash is destined to follow the same pattern, I believe it gives us the best indication of how eCash could perform this cycle. For example, Ethereum pulled a 50x last cycle going from a little under $100 to $5000. In the cycle before that, it returned greater than 100x going from under $10 to over $1400. And for the record, I'm not going to discuss the returns for those who got in at the ICO and paid like twenty-five cents for every ETH, since eCash is not an ICO coin.

Bitcoin isn't all that different. Last cycle we saw it pull about a 20x as it went from a little over $3000 to $69K. The cycle before that it did about a 100x as it went from $200 to $20K. And the cycle before that it was more like 500x as it went from $2 to over $1000.

Altcoins have shown similar sized pumps with Avax previously pulling a 40x and Solana pulling a 100x in their first cycles. Again, not including ICO prices but the prices that were available to the public.

This is why I think anywhere from 30x to 100x for eCash from here is possible as well. I also chose those numbers because of their significance. A 30x from here would mean we kill two zeros and reach $0.001 for the first time. Whereas a 100x would bring us close to $0.004, which is equal to the previous all time high of Bitcoin Cash in terms of market cap, so I see that as a number that can be reached.

But of course none of this means any of this is guaranteed. Not every coin gets a second cycle. Actually, if you look at all the coins on CoinMarketCap.com, very few ever reclaim their previous all time high. In most cases, what you see is that with every cycle the price will only get to a fraction of the previous all time high before eventually disappearing into insignificance.

In the case of eCash, it already had about a 40x pump its first time out as it went from $10 to $390. But I believe that was muted due to the fact that the official eCash launch wasn't until July 1, 2021, which was already close to the end of the bull market by then. Plus it had yet to be listed on many exchanges other than Binance.

So whether we get a new all time high this cycle will depend on a lot of variables, but I definitely see the potential. Not only because of all the work that has been put into improving the protocol and the surrounding infrastructure, but also due to the fact that eCash hasn't even tapped into the US market yet. I remember the mania that happened when Coinbase first listed Bitcoin Cash. I don't see why something similar couldn't happen if they listed eCash. Of course the Coinbase listing marked the absolute top for BCH, so that might be something worth remembering if you feel yourself fomoing on a Coinbase listing.

The truth is, nobody knows what the future holds, but here's what I do know. eCash has a halving coming up in April, meaning the number of coins that miners can sell will be reduced by 50%. Also, unlike other Bitcoin forks, eCash has a self sustaining funding mechanism paid directly out of the block reward, so if the price of eCash goes up, the amount of money available to pay developers goes up, which should theoretically mean the speed of development would go up. And perhaps most importantly, eCash has a solid scaling roadmap to help ensure that even as the network sees increased usage, the user experience won't be negatively impacted as it was for Bitcoin in 2017. I think about 2017 a lot. About how much mainstream attention Bitcoin and crypto received at the time, and where we might be if these networks had managed to showcase themselves and demonstrate their value to the masses instead of falling flat on their faces with high fees and horrible user experiences. Well, I'm hoping that the eCash project will ensure that if we do get another chance, this time we will have a chain that shows people what real magic internet money is all about.

eCash $XEC: Wen moon? A discussion on the price of XEC