The large management company Bitwise has revealed its methodology for predicting a 14-fold increase in the price of Bitcoin over the next decade.
For many investors, the price of $1 million per bitcoin seems fantastic, but Bitwise Investment Director Matt Hogan suggested looking at the figure through the prism of gold's history. In his opinion, skeptics are making a systematic mistake by assessing the potential of the first cryptocurrency based on static data, while the market is always in motion. The expert explained that even conservative forecasts indicate a high probability of the main cryptocurrency reaching a seven-figure price level.
To reach a price of $1 million per Bitcoin (BTC), quotes must grow approximately 14 times from the current level of about $70,000 per coin. Commenting on this forecast, Hogan noted that in 2018, when he devoted himself entirely to cryptocurrencies, he often heard such predictions from other people, which seemed absurd to him.
“I no longer think [the $1 million prediction] is absurd. As I studied this asset more and more, I realized that I had made a rather elementary mistake in analyzing Bitcoin's prospects,” Hogan wrote.
Bitwise positions itself as one of the largest and fastest-growing crypto asset management companies. It offers a wide range of investment instruments, including spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and Solana. The company's assets under management in Bitcoin ETFs exceed $2.7 billion. The company and its individual representatives, including Hogan, periodically share forecasts about the prospects for the crypto market and the prices of individual crypto assets.
At the end of last year, Bitwise predicted that 2026 would be a bullish year for the market, but a few months later, amid Bitcoin's fall to $60,000 in early February, the company revised its forecast, calling what was happening a full-blown “crypto winter.” Nevertheless, it maintains a long-term positive outlook for the cryptocurrency market.
Why $1 million for a bitcoin?
First and foremost, as Hogan wrote, Bitcoin should be viewed as a new digital store of value that competes directly with gold. Both instruments allow investors to store funds outside the traditional banking system and national currencies, the expert writes.
And although Bitcoin is still more volatile and less recognized by investors than gold, it is fighting for a place in the same niche as the precious metal.
Second, to assess the potential of Bitcoin's price, the expert suggested considering the size of the entire market for assets used to save funds. It is also important to take into account the growth forecasts for this sector as a whole.
*Gold is traditionally considered a safe-haven asset: it is believed to help preserve capital value during periods of currency volatility, inflation, and economic and geopolitical uncertainty. Bitcoin is called “digital gold,” often pointing to the limited supply of both assets, and it is said that the first cryptocurrency is repeating the historical path of gold. Limited supply means that neither metal nor Bitcoin can be “printed” or created instantly, as is the case with currencies or securities, for example. And the process of creating both assets does not depend on any single centralized structure.
Today, the total size of the “savings” asset market is estimated by experts to be just under $38 trillion. Of this, $36 trillion is accounted for by gold and only $1.4 trillion by Bitcoin. This means that cryptocurrency accounts for about 4% of this pool. For Bitcoin to be worth $1 million at the current market size, its share would have to exceed 50%.
This situation does indeed seem like an impossible task, the expert acknowledged. However, if we assess the growth of the sector based on data from the past 20 years, the picture looks different. He believes that thanks to the global financial crisis, quantitative easing policies, and geopolitical instability, the market may continue to show positive dynamics with an average annual growth rate of 13%.
If this trend continues over the next decade, the expert argues, then in 10 years the global safe-haven asset market will reach approximately $121 trillion. And in this case, to reach a price of $1 million per bitcoin, it will need to occupy not 50%, but only 17% of this market.
“Growing from 4% to 17% is still a serious challenge, but it no longer seems impossible when you consider how far Bitcoin has come in recent years,” Hogan writes, noting the launch and adoption of exchange-traded bitcoin funds in the US and institutional interest around the world, including sovereign wealth funds and governments.
Hogan also acknowledged that the market's growth over the past two decades does not guarantee future momentum, admitting that Bitcoin may not be able to increase its share in the face of competition or regulatory restrictions. But he added that the forecasts may be too conservative, with cryptocurrency capable of capturing a much more significant share.