Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (창펑 자오) said bitcoin would reach $1 million faster than expected and would eventually surpass gold's market capitalisation. Bitcoin Magazine reported on Aug. 27 that Zhao also said at the "Bitcoin Asia" event in Hong Kong that countries that do not adopt bitcoin could fall behind.

Zhao said it would not take 25 years for bitcoin to reach $1 million and that it would come much sooner. He said bitcoin would clearly become more important than gold and that large countries would realise over time that bitcoin is a much better asset.

Bitcoin has been rising since last week. After reports that the U.S. Treasury would at least double the scale of its buyback operations for liquidity support, the dollar weakened and non-interest-bearing assets such as bitcoin and gold rose.

Bitcoin has risen about 12 percent over the past seven days. It climbed as high as $81,160 earlier this week but later fell back to $80,520. Its market capitalisation is $1.6 trillion, still far behind gold's $32.2 trillion.

Zhao said bitcoin adoption at the national level would also eventually spread. He said it was risky not to secure artificial intelligence technology or to delay fostering domestic industries, and argued it was even riskier not to use bitcoin. He added that it would take time for countries to move to bitcoin, but they would eventually do so.