Can Polkadot Reach $1000?

(Updated 16. September 2022)

Polkadot is a fascinating project that has real use cases and value. In this article, I’ll look at the potential prices Polkadot might reach and if it can touch $1000 at some point.

Here’s the short answer:

Yes, Polkadot can reach $1000, but before the next decade. A thousand-dollar Polkadot will have a market capitalization of over $1 trillion, which is unrealistic until Bitcoin reaches a price of roughly one million dollars.

Let’s get into the details!

Why Polkadot is Unlikely to Reach $1000 Before 2025:

When asking if $1000 is possible for Polkadot in before 2025, what we’re really asking is this:

“If DOT reaches $1000, will the market capitalization be unrealistically high?”

To answer this, we need to do some good ol’ math:

According to coinmarketcap, the circulating supply of DOT is roughly one billion coins (source).

Using this, we can calculate the market capitalization of a theoretical $1000 Polkadot, using this formula: Price * Circulating Supply = Market Cap.

$1000 * 1,000,000,000 = $1 Trillion

One trillion USD is a lot…

To get some perspective, look at the chart I made below showing the market cap of a theoretical $100,000 Bitcoin and $10,000 Ethereum next to a $1000 Polkadot:

I think a $10K Ethereum is highly likely within 2025/2026, and I do not think Polkadot will come that close to Ethereum. Therefore, I deem it unrealistic that Polkadot reaches $1000 any time soon.

However, when Bitcoin and Ethereum eventually mature, Polkadot has more room to grow. This makes it possible for Polkadot to reach highs that are hard even to imagine.

Let’s have some fun and try to figure out what Polkadot can do within this decade!

PS:
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What Can Polkadot Reach Within 2030-2040?

Here’s what I think will happen next decade: Bitcoin will hit $1,000,000.

If you’re not convinced, your need to read this article explaining when and why Bitcoin will hit one million bucks.

Going on, we’ll assume this, and look at what might happen to Polkadot, given the million-dollar Bitcoin prediction.

Another assumption we’ll make is that Bitcoin will contain 33.333% of the total money in the crypto market.

For example, if Bitcoin has a market cap of one trillion USD, the entire crypto market will total 3 trillion USD. Makes sense?

Alright, now let’s get to predicting (or speculating, to be more accurate…)!

Realistic Polkadot Price Prediction:

Right now, Polkadot holds 0.82% of the total cryptocurrency market. Assuming this remains constant, we can predict the price of Polkadot using the two assumptions above: Bitcoin reaching $1 million and the BTC market share being 33.333% of the total crypto market.

First, we need to calculate the size of the total crypto market when bitcoin reaches $1,000,000. This is easy, as the total crypto market will be three times larger than that of Bitcoin.

A million-dollar Bitcoin will have a market cap of roughly 20 trillion bucks. Remember, market cap = price * supply. In Bitcoins case, this will be something like $1,000,000 * 20,000,000 = $20 Trillion.

With Bitcoin being a third of the value of all cryptocurrencies combined, this takes the total crypto market to $60 trillion.

Great, now we need to calculate how much of that will be in Polkadot, given the 0.82% market share:

$60 Trillion * 0.8% = $480,000,000,000

To get the price per DOT, we need to divide that number by the supply:

$640,000,000,000 / 1,000,000,000 = $480

This means that the predicted price, given our assumptions, is a $480 Polkadot within this decade.

That’s not bad at all, but it’s not even half of $1000… Let’s look at what it would take for Polkadot to reach $1,000:

PS: If you have invested in or consider investing in Ethereum, you need to read this article right now: My personal Ethereum investing and trading strategy.

What It Takes For Polkadot To Reach Thousand Dollars:

We can work backward from our goal to figure out this, starting with the end in mind.

For a thousand-dollar Polkadot, given the one billion supply, we need a trillion-dollar market cap.

How much of the total crypto market does Polkadot need to reach $1000, given a $60 Trillion crypto market?

We can calculate it like this: Market cap / Total market = Market share

$1,000,000,000,000 / $40,000,000,000,000 = 0.025 = 2.5%

In other words:

If Polkadot manages to capture 2.5% of the total crypto market, it can reach $1,000 within the next decade.

Here’s a chart showing the market share of Polkadot since its inception back in 2020:

Reaching 2.5% is far from impossible, given the ATH of 2.33% it reached back in 2021.

Let’s take things further:

What Price Can Polkadot Reach?

let’s tweak our assumptions even more and see what the maximum realistic Polkadot price might be.

We assumed a million-dollar Bitcoin, a 50% Bitcoin market share, and a 2.5% Polkadot market share. Let’s now operate with these assumptions:

• Bitcoin Will Reach $1.25 million within the next decade
• Bitcoin will hold 25% of the total crypto market
• Polkadot will hold 4.8% of the market (roughly what the fifth biggest coin, BNB, is doing right now)

Let’s use these new assumptions and calculate the predicted Polkadot price:

Bitcoin market cap will be 25% bigger than what it was at $1 million. This puts Bitcoin’s theoretical market cap at $25 Trillion.

The total crypto market, given the $25 Trillion Bitcoin market cap, and the 25% Bitcoin market share will then be:

$25 Trillion / 0.25 = $100 Trillion

The total cryptocurrency market will be worth $100 Trillion, in this theoretical thought experiment.

Now for the fun part! Polkadot will have a market cap equal to 4.8% of the total market, which is:

$100 Trillion * 4.8% = $4.8 Trillion.

The price is then calculated by dividing the market cap by one billion (the supply of DOT):

$4,800,000,000,000 / 1,000,000,000 = $4,800

In other words:

Given our new, more speculative assumptions, Polkadot is predicted to reach $4,800 in the next decade.

Please, do not read this as a prediction. This is just a thought experiment, and a nerd playing with numbers and ideas.

Conclusion: Yes, Polkadot Can Reach $1,000

Polkadot can not reach $1000 within 2025, but it might happen within the next decade given the general growth in the cryptocurrency market and a 2.5% market share for Polkadot.

To summarize my thoughts on the matter, this is my conclusion:

Yes, Polkadot might reach one thousand dollars at some point in the next decade. It will then have a market cap above one trillion USD. It will not happen this cycle, or the next, as Bitcoin restrains the potential growth of Polkadot to stay below $1000. But when Bitcoin eventually reaches a million bucks, Polkadot can reach anything from $1,000 up to $3,000 depending on the market share of Polkadot, and the Bitcoin dominance.