Bitcoin could plausibly trade at $1 million within a decade if it continues to gain ground as a store of value alongside gold, according to Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at crypto asset manager Bitwise.
Hougan argued in a recent blog post that many investors dismiss such price targets because they assume today’s landscape is fixed, whereas he expects both Bitcoin’s share of the market and the overall pool of assets used as stores of value to expand significantly over time.
Treating Bitcoin Like Digital Gold
Hougan frames Bitcoin as an emerging store-of-value asset that serves a similar role to gold by giving investors a way to hold wealth outside the traditional banking and fiat currency system, but in digital form.
In his view, valuing Bitcoin begins by estimating the total size of the global store of value market, then assessing what share of that market Bitcoin could eventually hold, and dividing that figure by the fixed supply of 21 million coins to produce an implied price per Bitcoin.
Today, he estimates that gold and Bitcoin together make up just under $38 trillion in store-of-value assets, with Bitcoin accounting for less than 4% of the total. At the current market size, reaching $1 million a coin would require Bitcoin to take more than half the market, a hurdle many investors view as unrealistic.
Expanding Store-of-Value Market
The critical oversight, Hougan says, is treating that market as static. He points to gold’s trajectory since the launch of the first U.S. gold ETF in 2004, when the metal’s total market value was roughly $2.5 trillion.
Driven by worries over government debt, geopolitical tension, and loose monetary policy, gold’s market value has grown many times over in the past two decades. If a similar growth trend persists, Hougan estimates the combined store-of-value market could reach around $121 trillion in ten years. In that scenario, Bitcoin would need to capture only about 17% of the market to justify a $1 million price tag.
He argues that shift, from roughly 4% market share today to about one-sixth, is ambitious but plausible given the asset’s progress. Spot Bitcoin ETFs did not exist in the United States a few years ago, institutional adoption was limited, and allocations were often capped at 1%. Now, he notes, the market includes large funds, endowments, and sovereign wealth investors, and some professionals are considering allocations closer to 5%.
Weighing the Risks
Hougan admits that his scenario is not guaranteed, as the store-of-value market could stagnate or shrink if the macroeconomic environment changes, and Bitcoin might fail to gain additional share.
At the same time, he sees a meaningful chance that his assumptions are too cautious, particularly if concerns over government debt and currency debasement deepen, or if Bitcoin’s role in portfolios broadens faster than expected.
For Hougan, the central case is that the store-of-value market will continue to grow and Bitcoin will keep chipping away at gold’s dominance. Under those conditions, he argues that prices far above today’s levels, including the once “crazy” $1 million figure, shift from fantasy to reasonable long-term scenarios.
