Bitcoin may eventually reach $1 million per coin if it captures a larger share of the global securities market currently dominated by gold and government bonds, according to Bitwise Asset Management CIO Matt Hougan.
In a report earlier this week, Hougan said bitcoin’s long-term upside depends less on short-term market cycles and more on how much of the world’s wealth preservation market the cryptocurrency absorbs over time.
“A million sounds crazy,” Hougan said. “It suggests bitcoin will rise 14x from today’s price.”
He pointed to several factors supporting this forecast, among them the rapid growth of the global market for securities, including gold, government bonds and other defensive assets, which has grown from about $2.5 trillion in 2004 to nearly $40 trillion today. Bitcoin currently only represents about 4% of this market by value.
If the largest cryptocurrency were to capture about half of this market under current conditions, the price could approach the $1 million mark within about a decade, Hougan said. If the broader store-of-value market continues to expand, bitcoin would require a smaller share to reach this level.
The price of 1 million dollars
The $1 million forecast has become a recurring theme throughout the crypto industry. President Donald Trump’s son Eric recently doubled his $1 million BTC call. In August, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said that bitcoin could reach this price by 2030.
Jack Dorsey, who ran X (formerly Twitter) until 2021 and co-founded payments company Block (formerly Square), said bitcoin could reach $1 million in five years. Arthur Hayes, former BitMEX CEO, believes it could come as soon as 2028. Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest expected bitcoin to reach $3.8 million by the end of the decade. Bernstein predicted in 2024 $1 million in 2033.
So why has the $1 million target become such a widely cited benchmark for bitcoin? CoinDesk asked several market analysts.
“It’s pure headline and shorthand for the idea that Bitcoin could compete with gold as a store of value. The exact number means less than the share of global wealth Bitcoin captures,” said Mati Greenspan, market analyst and Quantum Economics founder.
For Jason Fernandes, also a market analyst and co-founder of AdLunam, the milestone is more psychological than a precise valuation measure, reflecting the belief that bitcoin could ultimately win the store of value debate.
However, he also believes that part of the narrative is driven by marketing dynamics. “Some of the narrative is promotional because round numbers travel well and align with incentives for the holder,” Fernandes said, though he added that the underlying thesis is not pure hype.
“I think many investors are making a ‘static denominator’ error, valuing bitcoin relative to today’s large-of-value market rather than a much larger future,” he said.
For Fernandes, the real question is not whether $1 million bitcoin is theoretically possible, but whether institutional adoption is long enough to justify that price.
Analysts agree on the direction, but not the timeline
Some of the analysts who shared their comments with CoinDesk said Hougan’s projection is plausible in the long term, though most frame it as a decades-long adoption story rather than a short-term forecast.
“Geopolitical tension strengthens the Bitcoin thesis,” Greenspan said. “In uncertain times, investors look for neutral stores of value, and Bitcoin increasingly sits in that bucket alongside gold.”
Greenspan said the milestone is possible, but it will likely take a decade or more, requiring continued institutional adoption and broader legislative clarity.
Fernandes said Hougan’s argument is essentially a market share thesis. Bitcoin doesn’t need to replace gold directly, he said; it only needs to capture a portion of a growing global market for value holding.
“A $1 million bitcoin assumes long-term adoption and market share gains within the global store-of-value market,” Fernandes said. “It’s a thesis on bitcoin’s end state if it matures into a major global monetary asset.”
Institutional adoption remains the main driver
Hougan has argued that bitcoin’s fixed supply of 21 million coins and its decentralized network give it characteristics similar to traditional stores of value, such as gold.
Fernandes said the long-term $1 million thesis is highly dependent on continued institutional adoption and growth in the global market for value holdings.
“BTC does not need to replace gold or fiat; it only needs to capture about 17% of a projected $121 trillion market over the next decade to justify a $1 million price,” Fernandes said.
Greenspan said geopolitical uncertainty could further strengthen bitcoin’s appeal as a neutral asset.
“In uncertain times, investors are looking for value-neutral holdings, and bitcoin increasingly sits in that bucket alongside gold,” he said, though he added that it would likely take years of sustained adoption to reach such a valuation.
Nima Beni, founder of Bitlease, said the timeline could accelerate if confidence in traditional financial assets weakens.
“Bitcoin hits $1 million as confidence in traditional ‘safe’ assets breaks down,” he said, pointing to potential sovereign debt crises or disruptions in the gold market as possible catalysts.
Despite the bullish projections, analysts said bitcoin’s path toward such valuations would depend more on long-term adoption and macroeconomic conditions than short-term market cycles.
