BITCOIN UNTIL 2140: THE PROGRAMMED UNKNOWN

Bitcoin is a strange object. We look at it like we look at a meteorite stuck in a museum display case, with the feeling of holding a piece of the future in our hand, all the while knowing that we don't yet fully understand what we're holding. Its nature condemns it to volatility, and its volatility condemns it to being misunderstood. It's an asset, a currency, a network, a political weapon, a religion for some, a sham for others. And since it doesn't fit into any comfortable category, it attracts two types of prophets: those who announce that it will end up worth nothing, and those who swear that it will end up on top of the world. On one side, Eugene Fama, Nobel laureate in economics, predicts a collapse to zero well before 2140. Not because he's a cartoon villain who hates innovation, but because he applies a cold logic: an asset that has no real monetary utility, that has no intrinsic value recognizable by classical models, eventually dissolves. Something that serves no purpose and produces nothing eventually returns to its fundamental value.

And in his view, that value is close to zero. Fama isn't writing poetry. He's using a scalpel. On the other hand, Michael Saylor speaks to you like a conqueror. He talks about tens of millions per unit in a few decades. He speaks of a world where selling your Bitcoin will be a historical blunder, where you'll borrow against it like you borrow against a building, where the entire financial system will reorganize itself around a hard, neutral, unmanipulationable collateral. His narrative is like a rocket. You can find it grandiose or ridiculous, but it has internal coherence, and above all, it's based on a real point: Bitcoin isn't an "investment" in the classical sense; it's an attempt to rewrite the system of reference. Between the two, you have Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, who doesn't speak like a maximalist, but like a man who senses the market's flow.

He mentions Bitcoin reaching $700,000 if sovereign wealth funds allocate just 5% of their portfolios to it. This statement has a particularity: it doesn't say, "Bitcoin will rise because it's magic," it says, "Bitcoin will rise because the size of the pockets that can buy it is monstrous." It's not a prophecy, it's a mechanism. And then you have analysts who allow themselves to be completely intoxicated. 100 million, 500 million by 2140. Figures that, stated like that, sound like the spiel of a dream peddler a little too high on dopamine. But again, their logic can be summed up in one sentence: supply is fixed, demand has no theoretical limit, and if fiat currency continues to depreciate, the thermometer (the price in dollars) will eventually explode. Who to believe? The honest answer is: no one.

Anyone who tries to sell you a certainty about 2140 is mainly selling you their ego. But that doesn't mean we can't understand anything. Both sides have solid arguments, and that's precisely what makes this exercise interesting. The goal isn't to choose a religion, but to understand the forces that can push Bitcoin toward one extreme or the other. So we're going to take a trip through time. Not a trip to fantasize about a number, but to understand what could shape Bitcoin in worlds where we're no longer here. We'll explore three major time horizons: 2050, 2080, 2110, and then the mythical threshold of 2140, with this simple idea: the further we go, the more we leave the realm of analysis and enter the realm of pure speculation. And yet, even when speculating, we can distinguish what's plausible from what's just theatrics. In 2050, your children might be thirty. Bitcoin is forty.

And already more than 99% of bitcoins have been mined. Around 200,000 BTC will remain to be created out of the 21 million. That's not much. It's practically nothing. Mining rewards have fallen to around 0.1 bitcoin per block, a drop in the ocean compared to today's 3.125 bitcoins. This detail is far from insignificant. Because the network's economy changes fundamentally as the block subsidy dries up. And here, theories diverge sharply. The optimistic camp puts forward a stark argument, almost insultingly simple: supply is capped, and humanity likes to accumulate what is scarce. In a world where fiat currencies continue to be diluted, where debt grows faster than real production, where traditional savings are crushed by inflation or financial repression, a scarce, portable, divisible, and difficult-to-grasp asset becomes a safe haven. Not a perfect refuge, not a “stable” refuge, but a structural refuge, because it offers something that states do not offer: a rule that they cannot change.

In this scenario, price is a consequence. Larry Fink tells you that if sovereign wealth funds allocate 2 to 5% of their portfolios, Bitcoin could reach $500,000 to $700,000. This isn't some mystical fantasy. It's a simple calculation. Sovereign wealth funds are vast. And even a small allocation can shift a market that remains relatively small compared to the sheer volume of global assets. Let's take this reasoning further, without any illusions. Global assets represent hundreds of trillions of dollars. If Bitcoin captures a significant share of this value, even 5%, even 10%, you arrive at market capitalizations of tens of trillions. Divide that by 21 million units, and you get prices in the millions per bitcoin. It's not "probable" in the sense that you can guarantee it, but it's not impossible in a mathematical sense.

The only question is: does Bitcoin deserve, obtain, and maintain this status in the long term? This is where Saylor adds his personal touch: the idea of Bitcoin-backed credit. Rather than selling, you borrow. You use Bitcoin as collateral, you obtain liquidity, you avoid capital gains tax, and you retain exposure to the asset. This logic already exists in traditional finance with real estate and stock portfolios. The difference is that Bitcoin is more volatile, younger, and politically more subversive. But if the world accepts it as collateral, it can become the backbone of an entire credit system. Except that here you touch on the weak point of this scenario: it depends on the institutional stability surrounding an asset that was created precisely to be independent of institutions.

This is the delicious paradox of Bitcoin. Maximalists want a world where banks and governments can no longer cheat. But the big prizes often require institutions to get involved. And when they do, they bring with them their constraints, their regulations, their attempts at capture. On the other side, the skeptical camp doesn't say, "Bitcoin is going to zero because I don't like Bitcoin." It says: an asset without everyday monetary utility ends up being a speculative token. Fama emphasizes this idea. If Bitcoin never becomes a real medium of exchange and remains an object of hoarding, it is vulnerable to narrative fatigue. Robert Shiller, another Nobel laureate, has a more psychological way of saying the same thing: a bubble can last a long time, sometimes a very long time, but it remains a bubble.

And a bubble eventually bursts. Shiller is embarrassing because he's right on one crucial point: the timing of a burst is impossible to predict. Which means you can live in a bubble for thirty years and die in it without ever seeing the needle fall. Skeptics add a second angle: competition. Central banks are developing digital currencies, the famous CBDCs. They will offer speed, user-friendliness, integration, apparent stability, and a state guarantee. The official doctrine will be simple: why use a volatile asset when you can have a stable, legal, secure, and universally accepted digital currency? Except there's a detail that's often forgotten: CBDCs are not an alternative to Bitcoin; they are a response to Bitcoin, and often a response that reinforces exactly what Bitcoin is trying to escape: control, surveillance, the ability to censor, limit, and condition.

CBDCs may win the convenience war, but they inevitably lose the freedom war. The question is: do most people choose convenience or freedom when they have rent to pay and a life to run? And then there's the energy argument, which keeps coming back like a boomerang. By 2050, we might be talking about commercial nuclear fusion, abundant, cheaper, and virtually unlimited energy. Some see this as a mining paradise. Except that if energy becomes abundant, competition among miners explodes, the difficulty adjusts, and margins shrink. Mining could become a near-zero-yield activity, reserved for giant players capable of surviving on microscopic margins. Here again, it's paradoxical: the more abundant the energy, the more gigantic the hashrate can become, the more secure the network, but the harder individual profitability becomes. So, in 2050, who will be right?

Probably no one with 100% certainty. And that's the most mature answer: an intermediate scenario is the most plausible. A bitcoin valued between $500,000 and $2 million, for example, isn't absurd if bitcoin establishes itself as a strategic reserve, if it's used daily via layers like Lightning, and if it becomes a normal component of corporate and even some government balance sheets. But it won't be smooth sailing. It will remain contested, regulated, attacked, caricatured, and sometimes co-opted. And above all, one question becomes unavoidable: what happens when the mining reward becomes insignificant while the new supply is almost nonexistent? That's where we slide toward 2080. By 2080, your grandchildren might already be grandparents. Bitcoin is over seventy years old. It has survived decades of criticism, regulation, crises, and cycles.

And something fundamental has changed: miners no longer live off the newly created bitcoins. They live off transaction fees. This is a complete paradigm shift. The network, instead of being primarily funded by monetary issuance, is now funded by usage. In an optimistic world, this transition means that bitcoin has won. Because if transaction fees are sufficient to secure the network, it means the network is being used, its economic value is real, and people are willing to pay to record transactions in the most robust ledger in the world. In this world, bitcoin is no longer just a store of value; it becomes a global settlement layer. Digital gold, but better than gold, because it is transferable, divisible, tamper-proof if properly stored, and virtually impossible to seize on a large scale without engaging in open warfare against cryptography and mathematics.

But skeptics raise a problem that isn't a mere technical detail. It's an existential question: the fee dilemma. If miners rely solely on fees, those fees must be high enough to maintain a sufficient hashrate, and therefore sufficient security. But if the fees become too high, users will flee to alternative solutions, sidechains, or other systems. You might say, "Lightning solves this," and Lightning does solve part of the problem by moving a large portion of transactions off-chain. But Lightning isn't a magic bullet: it has constraints, risks, and requirements for usability and adoption. And above all, it introduces a second dilemma: if everything goes off-chain, who will pay the fees on the main chain? Larger players, higher-value settlements, institutions, governments, corporations? In short, the main chain becomes a highway for heavy trucks, not a neighborhood street.

At that point, the question becomes political: do we accept that Layer 1 is expensive, and therefore elitist, while the masses use Layers 2 and 3? Or do we want Layer 1 to remain accessible, at the risk of reducing miners' revenue and thus potentially compromising security? This debate already exists today. In 2080, it will be central. Optimists add models, like Power Law, which suggests almost "predictable" long-term growth. They use it like a map. Skeptics point out that financial models love to fail precisely when we start to believe in them religiously. Stock-to-Flow, for example, was an idol in 2020-2021 and then crashed and burned. It's not that models are useless. It's that they become dangerous as soon as they transform into promises.

The other major factor in 2080 is the global monetary context. If the debt of major powers continues to grow faster than their economies, if the dollar gradually loses its status as the world's reserve currency, nations will seek a neutral alternative. Some envision a return to a gold-backed currency, others a basket of currencies, and still others an international unit of account. And in this list, Bitcoin may appear as an option, precisely because it belongs to no one. This is the argument of the "Bitcoin Standard." And it's an appealing argument because it's simple: neutrality has value. But here again, skeptics have a weapon: if Bitcoin becomes so important, then the temptation to capture it, control it, and manipulate it increases.

And in a world where states consider mining a critical infrastructure, the competition to control a significant portion of the hashrate can become a matter of sovereignty. In an extreme scenario, mining at a loss can become rational, like funding an army. Not for profit, but for power. By 2080, the most likely reality resembles an uncomfortable mix: Bitcoin is extremely valuable to its holders, it is integrated into global finance, but the network's security depends on the fragile balance between fees, adoption, and geopolitical competition. It's neither a happy ending nor a tragic one. It's a permanent complexity. And then comes 2110, the time of the last satoshis, where we almost completely leave the realm of reasonable projections.

In 2110, Bitcoin will be 101 years old. No one in this room, no one you know, will be here. And yet, the protocol continues, cold, steady, indifferent. Only a few thousand bitcoins remain to be created. The block reward has become symbolic. A few satoshis, almost nothing. And 2140 approaches like a date set in stone, because it's a date no one decided by vote, by meeting, by compromise. It's a date imposed by the logic of the code. 21 million, not one more, ever. At this point, the network functions exclusively on fees. Miners no longer "create" currency; they protect a system. You could even say they no longer mine; they guard. And the value of what they keep depends on one question: does humanity still need an immutable, public, neutral, censorship-resistant ledger in a world that will likely be saturated with surveillance, automation, AI, and programmable currency?

Optimists will tell you yes, more than ever. That in a world where state currency is an interface for social control, a neutral monetary protocol becomes a sanctuary. They'll tell you that Bitcoin won't even be measured in dollars anymore, because the dollar may have changed in nature, value, role, or even been replaced. They'll talk about an economic singularity: a point where "1 bitcoin = 1 bitcoin" is no longer a slogan, but a benchmark reality, because Bitcoin becomes the standard. It's seductive, but beware: "1 bitcoin = 1 bitcoin" is often a phrase used to avoid an awkward question. The real question isn't philosophical. It's trivial, almost vulgar: how many satoshis does a loaf of bread cost? How many satoshis for rent?

How many satoshis for a subscription? If Bitcoin never serves to measure everyday reality, it remains a treasure, not a currency. And that's precisely where the skeptics come back, with an argument that isn't stupid: the deflationary paradox. If an asset appreciates over time, nobody wants to spend it. If nobody wants to spend it, the economy freezes. And if the economy freezes, the system becomes dysfunctional. This argument is often brandished as a scare tactic against Bitcoin. It's sound on paper, but it ignores a crucial human element: people still spend. Even if they think it will be worth more tomorrow. They spend because they live. The question isn't "will people spend?" The question is "to what extent will Bitcoin become the spending currency, and to what extent will it remain a savings asset?"

Another risk emerges in 2110, a more technological one: quantum computing. If machines become capable of breaking certain cryptographic schemes, Bitcoin will have to evolve. It can do so technically, through updates and migrations. But it will also have to evolve socially, which is more difficult. Because Bitcoin isn't just software; it's a community, and communities don't like changing the rules. That's both its strength and its danger. Proposals already exist to strengthen quantum resistance, but no solution is "guaranteed" for a century's timeframe. Here, we have to be humble. And then there's the internal political risk: a community fork. What if, faced with a crisis, a part of the community wanted to change the rules, increase the 21 million limit, or alter monetary policy?

It would be a betrayal of its DNA, but history shows that communities split. Bitcoin Cash existed. Other forks have existed. The difference is that the larger Bitcoin is, the more costly a fork becomes in terms of credibility. But “costly” doesn’t mean “impossible.” So, what will Bitcoin be worth in 2110? Cold answer: no one can reasonably predict a price 85 years from now. What we can do is list the factors that will determine whether Bitcoin still exists and remains relevant. Utility as a store of value. Utility as a settlement layer. The technical capacity to evolve without betraying its core principles. The social capacity to remain cohesive without fracturing. And the geopolitical capacity to survive in a world where states might want to control or neutralize it.

And then comes 2140, the final scene of the movie that no one will ever see. The last satoshi is mined. 21 million exist. It's over. Monetary policy is frozen for good. Every line written in 2009 pointed toward this moment. It's fascinating, almost metaphysical: a monetary rule etched into the code, incorruptible, predictable, incapable of influencing an election or saving a budget. So, what will Bitcoin be worth at that point? Honest answer: we can't know. And anyone who claims to know is lying to you or themselves. Optimistic theories speak of hundreds of millions, even billions. But at those levels, you have to ask the question everyone avoids: in what unit? If the dollar has been diluted, replaced, reconfigured, the number no longer means much. Bitcoin's value isn't measured by a huge number.

It is measured by Bitcoin's position in the world's architecture. Pessimistic theories speak of collapse, of outdated technology, of a network abandoned due to a lack of profitability for miners, a lack of scalability, a lack of interest. This scenario also exists. And it's healthy to face it instead of telling ourselves stories. Humanity has already abandoned technologies that everyone believed would last forever. What "seems obvious" today can become obsolete tomorrow. And yet, even if 2140 is unpredictable, there's one point many miss: you don't need to wait until 2140 to see major changes. By 2030, 2040, 2050, the world will have already resolved crucial questions. Will Bitcoin become a standard institutional reserve asset?

Are states integrating it as a strategic reserve or fighting it head-on? Is the fee economy working or faltering? Are secondary layers becoming widely adopted? Is Bitcoin remaining a tool for freedom or becoming just another financial product? What you do now won't impact 2140. You're not going to influence history to that extent; let's not play the messiah. But what you do now impacts your own future within reasonable timeframes: the next ten years, the next twenty years. Because Bitcoin isn't just a bet on a price. It's a bet on a trajectory. A bet that programmed scarcity will hold up better than political dilution. A bet that decentralization will hold up better than control.

It's a gamble that sustainable code will hold up better than short-term management. This gamble could fail, and we must have the courage to admit it. But if this gamble pays off, those who have accumulated satoshis today will likely have shifted the financial trajectory of their lineage. Not because they will have "won at the casino," but because they will have chosen a form of savings that cannot be devalued by decree. And that is dizzying. It's uncertain. And this uncertainty is not a minor flaw: it's the heart of the matter. Because Bitcoin forces you to see value, trust, and money as human constructs, not as natural givens. It forces you to admit that the stability of the fiat system is often an illusion maintained by the power, communication, and subtle violence of the norm.

And it forces you to ask the question that previous generations didn't have to ask so directly: what is currency, when currency can be software? So yes, we're moving forward into the unknown. And that's precisely why we need to stop looking for a magic number in 2140 as if it were a destination. The important thing is the journey. And the journey starts now, with the choices you make today, not on the date the last satoshi falls like sacred dust from the ceiling of the code.

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