Bitcoin was trading at about $113,000 on Wednesday.Bitwise predicts a 28% annual growth rate over the next decade.If true, Bitcoin could reach well over $1 million per coin.<\/p>\n
Forget the 7% you\u2019ll get from stocks or the 4% from bonds. Bitwise forecasts that Bitcoin will deliver investors nearly 30% annually through 2035.<\/p>\n
In a Tuesday note<\/a> to investors, Matt Hougan<\/a>, chief investment officer at Bitwise<\/a>, predicted Bitcoin will enjoy a 28.3% compound annual growth rate over the next 10 years.<\/p>\n That would send Bitcoin from today\u2019s $113,000 to roughly $1.4 million in 2035.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a bold call from the asset manager, but one that reflects a profound shift<\/a> on Wall Street. <\/p>\n For the first time, major institutional platforms managing trillions of dollars are asking for long-term Bitcoin forecasts. Not one or two requests, but 12 in January alone, according to Bitwise.<\/p>\n \u201cTwelve may not sound like much, but it is: Most of the new requests came from large national account platforms that handle hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars in assets,\u201d wrote Hougan.<\/p>\n \u201cMultiply 12 by half a trillion dollars and you\u2019re talking about real money.\u201d<\/p>\n Moonshot math<\/p>\n At 28.3% annual growth, the numbers get wild fast.<\/p>\n Starting from today\u2019s $113,000 tag, Bitcoin would hit $145,000 by year\u2019s end. <\/p>\n By 2027, it breaks $240,000<\/a>. Come 2030, we\u2019re talking half a million per coin.<\/p>\n And in 2035, Hougan predicts, Bitcoin will change hands for a staggering $1.4 million. <\/p>\n For context, that would give Bitcoin a market capitalisation of roughly $28 trillion \u2014 larger than the entire US Treasury market today, and well above twice the size of gold\u2019s market cap. <\/p>\n Compound annual growth rate is the average yearly growth an investment would have if it rose at a steady pace. In short, it smooths out the ups and downs and shows the consistent percentage gain needed each year to get from today\u2019s value to the predicted future one. <\/p>\n From zero to 12<\/p>\n Before 2025, exactly zero major institutional platforms had asked Bitwise for long-term Bitcoin projections. <\/p>\n Now, 12 large entities have been knocking at their door. <\/p>\n What changed? For one, spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds launched in January 2024, opening the faucet for once-sidelined funds to flow freely into Bitcoin-related instruments. Those ETFs<\/a> now hold around 1.2 million Bitcoin worth about $144 billion, according to a Dune Analytics dashboard<\/a>. <\/p>\n ETF investors have come to change the game, according to Hougan. <\/p>\n \u201cProfessional investors mostly thought of bitcoin as an idiosyncratic, opportunistic investment,\u201d said Hougan.<\/p>\n But now that they\u2019re now asking for long-term capital market assumptions, it suggests that they\u2019ve shifted their view, said Hougan. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s no longer a one-off for the fringes of the portfolio; it\u2019s starting to be considered for the core.\u201d<\/p>\n Treasuries and regulation<\/p>\n But ETFs are only one reason. <\/p>\n Bitcoin treasury companies have been quickly devouring every available coin on the market. According to Bitcoin Treasuries<\/a>, the top 100 Bitcoin treasuries hold roughly 983,816 Bitcoin worth about $113 billion. <\/p>\n And importantly, there\u2019s fresh regulation. In mid-July, Donald Trump signed<\/a> the Genius Act into law, the first major crypto bill to see the light of day in the US. It is also the first of two major crypto bills the president has urged Congress to pass this year.<\/p>\n SEC Chair Paul Atkins has also announced a deregulation campaign<\/a> dubbed \u201cProject Crypto.\u201d <\/p>\n Lots of assumptions<\/p>\n Of course, projecting 30% annual returns for a decade assumes a lot.<\/p>\n It assumes regulatory clarity continues to improve. It assumes no catastrophic technical failures. It assumes institutions keep buying, treasuries keep stacking, and the four-year boom-bust<\/a> cycle that has defined Bitcoin since inception truly is dead. <\/p>\n Additionally, it assumes that volatility \u2014 which Bitwise acknowledges will remain high \u2014 doesn\u2019t scare off the institutional money the projection depends on. <\/p>\n Still, even if Bitwise is half right, Bitcoin at $400,000 by 2035 would represent a price tag that only the boldest<\/a> of Bitcoin predictions have imagined.<\/p>\n