Bitwise Raises Its Bitcoin Price Target to $1.6 Million by 2036, Up From $1.3 Million Last Year

Bitwise has raised its ten-year bitcoin price target to $1.6 million by 2036. That is up from the $1.3 million target the firm set a year ago, and it comes in a year when bitcoin itself is down.

THE NEW NUMBER AND WHERE IT CAME FROM

The forecast is the headline of Bitwise's 2027 Bitcoin Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions report, published this week. It projects a 34.3 percent compound annual growth rate for bitcoin through 2036, up from the 28.3 percent rate the firm projected last year. Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan said the market-share assumptions behind the model did not change. What changed is the size of the markets themselves: Bitwise now expects the global store-of-value market to reach $110 trillion by 2036, up from a prior estimate of $91 trillion, and the institutional investment market to reach $303 trillion, up from $216 trillion.

"We are more bullish on bitcoin today than we were last year," Hougan wrote.

THE BASE CASE MATH

Bitwise's $1.6 million base case assumes bitcoin captures 25 percent of the global store-of-value market and 1 percent of institutional investment assets by 2036. The firm leans on a Boston Consulting Group estimate that institutional investors already control roughly $147 trillion in assets. A 1 to 5 percent allocation of that pool into bitcoin over the next decade would generate between $1.5 trillion and $7.4 trillion in new demand. Bitcoin mining, by contrast, produces only about $14 billion in new supply a year.

THE SPREAD: $130,686 TO $3.67 MILLION

The report's range is wide by design. The bear case, in which bitcoin captures just 2.5 percent of the store-of-value market and sees no institutional allocation at all, puts the 2036 price at $130,686. The bull case, built on bitcoin taking half of the global store-of-value market, reaches $3.67 million. Bitwise frames the base case, not either extreme, as its actual forecast.

THE SUPPLY SIDE OF THE ARGUMENT

About 20.1 million bitcoin, or 95.7 percent of the 21 million that will ever exist, is already in circulation. Bitwise's argument is that a multi-trillion-dollar wave of institutional demand is being pointed at an asset whose new supply is fixed and shrinking relative to that demand. The firm also lowered its ten-year volatility forecast to 27.8 percent, down from 32.9 percent in last year's report, arguing that deeper institutional ownership is already smoothing bitcoin's swings.

Bitwise's own numbers show bitcoin's recent drawdown was still the shallowest in its history relative to prior cycles, even as the current base case assumes further corrections along the way. The firm's bet is that the gap between a fixed 21 million coin supply and a $147 trillion pool of institutional capital looking for a home closes through price, because it has nowhere else to close.

This story comes from the Simply Bitcoin Live show. Watch the full episode.