I waffle on this point. Obviously with limited adoption in terms of actual exchange of goods, $1,000 is an arbitrary threshold. That said, with limite adopton in terms of actual exchange of goods I can't really judge how much bitcoin is worth. I have a good understand of what $1 is work (1/2 of a carton milk, a candy bar, and so on) but really no concept of what a bitcoin buys me. So it makes perfect sense for me to relate its value to something I already understand the value of.
1 BTC is worth 1/20000000 th of the entire BTC economy. The current push in price comes mostly from an uptake in China.
Now that's 1 bn people there, so if it finds broader adoption in the country we could see further price increases (if we divide all Bitcoins that will ever exist by the population of China, everyone there will get 0.02 BTC). So if the current trend holds true and the adoption takes on there.. Now let's say India, Africa or most of south america get wind of it.. Africa in particular has difficulty with local currencies and a relatively good mobile network, so it is well possible and the other countries certainly don't want to be left out either. And then there is Europe and the rest of Asia..
So let's say 5 bn people want some part of it (just to buy 1/2 carton of milk), we are at 0.004 BTC. But then, some are greedy and want more than average, so.. you might get the idea.
Edit: thinking about it, at current price ca. 0.001 BTC / 1/2 carton of milk, you could actually buy all those people one serving (excluding shipping). Now if people want to buy cars or houses or ponies, we have to split that a bit further.
That still brings me back to "I know what a dollar is worth." The wealth will obviously not be evenly spread so figuring out how much each person might have doesn't really help us much, especially not until all bitcoins are mined. What I (and everyone who wants some part of it) want to know is "What does a bitcoin buy me" and right now literally the only benchmark of that for me is the currency which I currently buy things in.
But it's warped because I can't buy things in bitcoin. Not much, anyway. So I don't know what to think about $1,000 = 1 BTC.
For a currency who's primary promise was eliminating the middle man (payment processors, global exchange rates and so on), I find it ironic that it relies heavily on middlemen for adoption.
