Digiconomist and bitcoin expert Tuur Demeester said Wednesday that he expects the bitcoin price to hit $20,000 in the next 12 months.
The price of the volatile digital currency has been skyrocketing in recent weeks, up from a low of $995 in early February to a high of $11,148 earlier this month. The price peaked at about $11,500 earlier this week, but has since fallen back to just above $11,000.
Demeester said the price of bitcoin is likely to hit the elusive $20,000 milestone in the next 12 months.
"I think the price will go higher from here," he told CNBC's "Halftime Report." "At the moment, I think there's room for further upside, but I'm more focused on the downside, because that is when the excitement is. When the price is falling, that's when it's really exciting and interesting."
The forecast comes after bitcoin's recent decline, which followed a sharp rally that began at the start of this year. As of Tuesday, the price of a single bitcoin is at its lowest point since January.
Demeester said the drop in bitcoin prices doesn't mean that the digital currency is losing market share to other digital currencies such as litecoin and ripple, though the large gains in other digital currencies have slowed and could force some people back into the bitcoin market.
"In my view, the second big factor that will influence the price is the transition from people not buying them and using them as a store of value to people using them to buy other things, whether that's people buying domain names, selling their cars on the peer-to-peer platform to getting a payment for a service," he said.
Demeester said that there's still "very little" infrastructure in place to allow more people to use bitcoin. And while the digital currency has become a popular payment option, people who want to buy things with bitcoin still need a bitcoin wallet.
He added that while the bitcoin market has become more liquid over the past year, it's still very fragmented. As a result, there are a lot of different exchanges and lots of different wallets. But there's still "a long way" to go in terms of making the digital currency more mainstream, Demeester said.
Bitcoin is digital currency that exists only online and is not controlled by any central bank. It's the first decentralized digital currency, meaning there's
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