Bitwise raises bitcoin price target to $1.6 million by 2036, projects 34% annualized returns

Crypto asset manager Bitwise has raised its 10-year bitcoin Bitcoin (BTC) forecast from $1.3 million to $1.6 million, projecting the largest cryptocurrency will generate a 34.3% compound annual growth rate during the period.

That represents around five times the 6.7% annual return forecast for U.S. equities and three times the 10.8% forecast for the next-best asset class, private equity, based on average projections from JPMorgan, PGIM, BlackRock, and Vanguard.

Bitwise's revised forecast comes from its 2027 Bitcoin Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions, released Wednesday, an annual report analyzing bitcoin's potential returns, volatility, and corrections over the coming decade.

Bitwise calculates its bitcoin price target by estimating the future size of markets the cryptocurrency could compete in, then assigning bitcoin a share of each. In a note to clients on Wednesday, Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan said the firm kept those market-share assumptions unchanged from last year, but raised its estimate for the global store-of-value market in 2036 from $91 trillion to $110 trillion, and for the institutional investment market from $216 trillion to $303 trillion.

Citing Boston Consulting Group estimates that institutional investors control roughly $147 trillion in assets, with an allocation of 1% to 5% to bitcoin over the next decade, Bitwise also expects $1.5 trillion to $7.4 trillion of demand, compared to just $14 billion in new bitcoin supply issuance via mining per year. The report noted that 20.1 million bitcoin, or 95.7% of its maximum supply of 21 million, is already in circulation.

For its $1.6 million base case, Bitwise assumes bitcoin will capture 25% of the global store-of-value market and 1% of institutional investment assets by 2036. The report's bear case puts bitcoin at $130,686 by 2036, with just 2.5% of the store-of-value market, while its bull case reaches $3.67 million at a 50% share.

"We are more bullish on bitcoin today than we were last year," Hougan said in a separate statement accompanying the report's release. "Everything that happened in the past 12 months — from the shallowness of the four-year pullback, to the continued progress on regulation, to the dramatic growth in demand for hard assets like gold — points to the continued long-term success of bitcoin."

A maturing asset

The report comes as the market continues to debate whether bitcoin's June lows of around $58,000 mark the end of the latest bear cycle, with its price since rallying around 40% to above $80,000.

Bitwise noted that the approximate 53% drawdown from an October 2025 all-time high above $126,000 would represent a significantly shallower drop than prior cycles, which saw bitcoin fall 86%, 84%, and 77% following the record highs in 2013, 2017, and 2021, respectively.

Hougan acknowledged that much of the recent demand for store-of-value assets had gone into gold rather than bitcoin, and that ETF purchases had slowed. Nevertheless, he said institutions continued adding bitcoin exposure throughout the downturn, while bitcoin's share of the store-of-value market had grown from less than 1% a decade ago to more than 5% today.

"Over the past 17 years, bitcoin has grown from an unproven idea into a nearly $2 trillion asset that is increasingly owned by some of the most respected investors in the world," Hougan said. "This early stage was the difficult part — now is when we watch it mature and flourish."

The crypto asset manager also expects average bitcoin volatility to fall to 27.8% over the next decade, compared with the 32.9% forecast in last year's report.

"Bitcoin will likely remain a volatile asset with sharp downturns, but all signs point to these swings weakening as institutional adoption deepens," Bitwise Head of Research Ryan Rasmussen said in the statement. "With institutional inflows, rising demand for store-of-value assets, and a limited supply, we expect bitcoin to be the best-performing major institutional asset in the world between now and 2036."