With the activation of the Bitcoin Core development team’s transaction malleability fix Segregated Witness (SegWit) in sight, Max Keiser, host of RT’s Keiser Report, predicts Bitcoin price will hit $5,000.
On July 16, the activation threshold of BIP 91 was met and five days later, BIP was fully locked in by miners. Bitcoin Improvement Proposal BIP 91 is a solution that was endorsed by the mining community to avoid a chain split and the creation of a secondary Bitcoin.
Prior to the lock-in of BIP 91, Bitcoin price recovered from $1,850 to $2,300, as the 80 percent hash rate activation threshold was met. When BIP 91 was fully locked in on July 21, Bitcoin price surged from $2,300 to $2,750, recording a staggering $910 increase within a five-day period.
#bitcoin price increased from $1,850 to $2,760, by $910, within a 5-day period as BIP 91 activation threshold was met and it locked in. pic.twitter.com/Pcf1Evammu
— Joseph Young (@iamjosephyoung) July 21, 2017
So will Bitcoin price hit $5,000?
Previously, Keiser revealed his $5,000 price target for Bitcoin as the upward momentum of Bitcoin had been sustained for a long period of time. But, as the scaling debate prolonged, some investors and traders began to lose confidence in the ability of Bitcoin to scale.
As support for BIP 91 increased and SegWit activation became more likely, Keiser explained that his $5,000 price target has also become more likely.
“More $5,000 price target for Bitcoin still in play in the short term as Satoshi's genius infects millions more,” said Keiser.
The Bitcoin community and industry are highly anticipating the activation of SegWit, as it is expected to optimize Bitcoin blocks by 75 percent and decrease Bitcoin transactions fees at a substantial rate.
Doubts
However, as Bitcoin journalist Aaron Van Wirdum emphasized, the lock-in of BIP 91 does not necessarily mean a guaranteed activation of SegWit. On top of maintaining majority hash rate support for BIP 91, miners also have to signal Bit 1 in their blocks to activate SegWit.
The community became more optimistic regarding the activation of SegWit after Antpool, the largest mining pool operated by Bitmain, started to signal Bit 1 in their blocks.
Bitcoin Core developer Peter Todd mentioned a similar point as Wirdum in a statement:
“A majority of miners can renegotiate on BIP-91, fail to activate SegWit, and get away without any long-term consequences because the BIP-91 invalid blocks they would be producing are considered to be perfectly valid by the vast majority of users' nodes.”
If all things are conducted as planned and SegWit is activated, Keiser’s price target of $5,000 will become more likely.