Bitwise Asset Management on Wednesday 28 October raised its ten-year bitcoin forecast to $1.6 million per coin by 2036, up from the $1.3 million by 2035 it published in August 2025. The figure comes from the San Francisco fund manager’s 2027 Bitcoin Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions, signed by chief investment officer Matt Hougan and head of research Ryan Rasmussen with three colleagues, and it implies a compound annual growth rate of 34.3% for a decade.
The Bitwise bitcoin forecast is the firm’s view, not Coindaro’s. Bitwise also sells bitcoin products, including the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB), so it has a direct business interest in investors believing the asset will rise.
Bitcoin traded near $80,500 at 17:32 UTC on Wednesday, according to Coindaro’s market data, down about 4.7% over seven days. Bitwise’s base case sits roughly 20 times above that level.
The Bitwise bitcoin forecast in numbers: $1.6 million, 34.3% a year
The web page lists four headline assumptions for the next ten years: a 34.3% annual return, average volatility of 27.8%, an average correlation of 0.43 with US stocks, and institutional investors putting 1% to 5% of their portfolios in bitcoin. “We forecast bitcoin will be the best-performing major institutional asset of the next decade,” the page says, adding that it will stay subject to “significant (but diminishing) drawdowns”.
The full 19-page report in PDF gives the precise base case: $1,599,766 per bitcoin in 2036, starting from $83,557, the price on 30 September 2026. The PDF names five authors: the four listed on the web page plus research analyst Camran Khosravi.
Against the previous edition, the target moved up by $300,000, or about 23%, and the horizon by one year. The required growth rate rose by six points, from 28.3% to 34.3%. Part of that comes from the higher target, part from a lower start: bitcoin enters this edition at $83,557, a third below its October 2025 peak. The allocation range did not change at all.
| Assumption | August 2025 report | October 2026 report |
|---|---|---|
| Price target | $1.3 million by 2035 | $1.6 million by 2036 ($1,599,766) |
| Annual growth rate (CAGR) | 28.3% | 34.3% |
| Average volatility | 32.9% | 27.8% |
| Correlation with US stocks | 0.39 | 0.43 |
| Institutional allocation | 1% to 5% | 1% to 5% |
| Starting price stated | Not on the web page | $83,557 (30 September 2026) |
Sources: Bitwise’s 2025 assumptions page of 21 August 2025 and its 2027 report of 28 October 2026. Bitcoin Magazine, which covered the report on Wednesday, gives the same base, bear and bull figures as the PDF.
A quarter of the store-of-value market carries 82% of the target
Bitwise builds its price with a total addressable market model. It estimates how large seven markets that bitcoin could serve will be in 2036, assigns bitcoin a share of each, adds up the dollar value and divides by 21 million coins. “Models for forecasting the future value of bitcoin are new and evolving,” the report concedes, noting that there is no consensus on the method.
| Market | Size now | Size in 2036 (Bitwise) | Bear share | Base share | Bull share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Institutional investment assets | $139.7T | $303.5T | 0% | 1% | 5% |
| Emerging market currencies | $64.7T | $146.1T | 0% | 1% | 2.5% |
| Store of value (gold, bitcoin) | $31.1T | $109.8T | 2.5% | 25% | 50% |
| Offshore wealth | $13.0T | $19.0T | 0% | 5% | 10% |
| National treasury reserves | $14.2T | $18.1T | 0% | 2.5% | 5% |
| US corporate treasuries | $5.4T | $8.9T | 0% | 2.5% | 5% |
| Global remittances | $0.7T | $1.3T | 0% | 2.5% | 5% |
| Bitcoin price in 2036 | $130,686 | $1,599,766 | $3,667,911 | ||
| Implied annual growth | 4.6% | 34.3% | 46.0% |
Source: Bitwise, 2027 Bitcoin Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions, valuation framework table. Bitwise calls the scenarios illustrative and “not a prediction of future results”.
Running the base case through Bitwise’s own table shows where the weight sits. The store-of-value line, 25% of a $109.8 trillion market, is worth about $27.5 trillion, or roughly 82% of the $33.6 trillion total. Institutional portfolios at 1% add about $3 trillion, around 9%. The other five markets together supply the rest.
That matters because the story most readers will hear is about institutions. The report does lead with them: it cites a Boston Consulting Group estimate that institutional investors control about $147 trillion, and says allocations of 1% to 5% would mean buying $1.5 trillion to $7.4 trillion of bitcoin, against about $14 billion of new coins mined each year. But in the base case only the 1% end of that range is used. The 5% end belongs to the bull case.
The store-of-value share is the bigger leap. Bitcoin’s value at the 30 September price, about $1.68 trillion for 20.1 million coins in circulation, was roughly 5% of the $31.1 trillion market Bitwise counts. The base case needs 25% of a market that has also more than tripled. Bitwise gets the $109.8 trillion by extending that market’s growth rate of the past ten years, 14.1% a year, for another decade, and calls the result possibly “very conservative”.
Why the target rose although bitcoin fell 53%
Bitcoin did not have the year last year’s forecast needed. According to the report, it peaked at $126,080 on 6 October 2025 and fell 53.4% to $58,717 on 30 June 2026. Bitwise reads that drawdown as good news for its thesis: earlier cyclical falls measured 86%, 84% and 77%, so a shallower one, if the June low holds, would fit an asset that is maturing.
The firm gives two reasons for the higher growth rate: the markets bitcoin serves kept expanding, and its own confidence in bitcoin’s long-term path increased. The arithmetic adds a third. Last year’s 28.3% over ten years to $1.3 million implies a starting price near $108,000, by Coindaro’s calculation; this year’s model starts at $83,557. The fall in the starting price weighs slightly more in the higher growth rate than the $300,000 added to the target.
The report also leans on public finances. It says US federal debt reached $40.2 trillion, that interest payments run at $1.1 trillion a year and that the 2026 fiscal year closed with a $2.0 trillion deficit, and it expects governments to answer with currency debasement. Bitwise stresses that its analysis assumes only that recent trends continue, not hyperinflation.
On supply, the report notes that bitcoin’s annual issuance of about 0.8% will fall to 0.4% in 2028 and 0.2% in 2032 under the fixed schedule explained in our glossary entry on the bitcoin halving. It also states that US spot bitcoin ETPs hold $108 billion, less than three years after launch.
Volatility and correlation: the quieter assumptions
The volatility assumption fell from 32.9% to 27.8%. Bitwise expects bitcoin’s volatility to keep falling but assumes the rate of decline will be half the historical trend, because the biggest risks, from custody to regulation, have already been reduced. The 27.8% it uses is the midpoint between today’s level and the level it expects in 2036, so it says near-term volatility will probably run higher.
Correlation moves the other way. Bitwise measures bitcoin’s ten-year average correlation with US stocks at 0.25, yet uses 0.43 for the decade ahead, because it gives extra weight to the post-Covid period when the two moved together more. The report also says bitcoin’s 90-day correlation with gold hit a record 0.58 on 11 September 2026, while forecasting an average of 0.21 with gold for the coming decade.
For an allocator, those two numbers carry a trade-off. A higher link with stocks means bitcoin diversifies a portfolio less than its history suggests, which is one of the reasons institutions might give it a small slice rather than a large one.
How the $1.6 million forecast could be wrong
No independent analyst had published a critique of the report by Wednesday evening, as far as Coindaro could find. The weak points can still be read in Bitwise’s own numbers and its own list of risks.
The store-of-value market may not triple
Hold the store-of-value market at its current $31.1 trillion, change nothing else in the base case, and the 2036 price falls to about $663,000 by Coindaro’s arithmetic on Bitwise’s table. The forecast therefore depends as much on gold-like assets in general continuing to boom as on bitcoin taking market share.
The bear case keeps institutions at zero
In the bear scenario bitcoin wins nothing in six of the seven markets and only 2.5% of the store-of-value market, about half the share of roughly 5% it held on 30 September. That still gives $130,686, about 1.6 times Wednesday’s price, because the store-of-value market is assumed to more than triple in every scenario. Bitwise does not publish a case in which that market stops growing or bitcoin ends the decade below its starting price.
Technology and regulation
Bitwise names quantum computing and advances in mathematics accelerated by artificial intelligence as the biggest long-term risks. The PDF says bitcoin will likely need a major upgrade to quantum-resistant cryptography and that wallets which do not move to new addresses could be exposed, even if the upgrade succeeds. Coindaro covered both sides of that debate this month, in our report on Google cutting quantum error rates and in our explainer on OpenAI and the Exponential Time Hypothesis.
On regulation, the report acknowledges that the Clarity Act failed to advance in Congress in 2026 and says that failure, along party lines, opens the door to future risk. It still expects recent pro-crypto rules to stay in place.
Bitwise’s own risk section also warns that bitcoin has only traded widely since 2010 and that spot ETPs date from 2024, so any return, volatility or correlation forecast built on its history is “inherently uncertain”.
Bitwise sells the bitcoin exposure it is forecasting
Bitwise is an asset manager, and among its products is the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF, which trades on NYSE Arca under the ticker BITB, charges a 0.20% sponsor fee and held about $2.99 billion in net assets on 26 October 2026, according to the fund’s website. The legal disclosures under the report page list BITB among the Bitwise products and link to its prospectus.
That does not make the numbers wrong, and Bitwise publishes its inputs in enough detail to check them. It does mean the firm benefits if institutions follow its allocation range. The report itself says it is not investment advice and is “not intended to be a forecast of future events, or a guarantee of future results”, even though its headline is a price forecast.
Readers new to the format can find how these funds hold the coins in our explainer on crypto ETFs.
How other bitcoin forecasts compare, according to Bitwise
Bitwise places its forecast among other long-term calls. It says its view is in line with AllianceBernstein, which it cites as projecting bitcoin above $1 million by 2033, and Standard Chartered, cited at above $500,000 by 2030, and more conservative than ARK Invest and Strategy’s Michael Saylor. Those are Bitwise’s descriptions; Coindaro has not checked them against the firms’ own publications.
The comparison with traditional assets uses an average of long-term assumptions from JPMorgan, PGIM, BlackRock and Vanguard. On that table, US stocks are expected to return 6.7% a year and gold 5.5%, against 34.3% for bitcoin. JPMorgan’s own 2027 edition, published on 19 October and one of those four sources, treats bitcoin differently: it does not include the asset as an allocation in its portfolios, and the 10% annual return reported for it in press coverage is a model input rather than a price target, as set out in our report on JPMorgan’s long-term assumptions for bitcoin.
Bitwise also notes that bitcoin’s annual growth rate over the last ten years was 63.5%, so its 34.3% assumes a sharp slowdown from the past decade while staying far above any other asset in its table.
What the forecast changes, and what does not
Capital market assumptions are the inputs pension funds, endowments and wealth managers use to build portfolios. That is why Bitwise publishes return, volatility and correlation figures, not just a price. A higher return estimate combined with lower volatility makes bitcoin look better in an optimisation model, which tends to suggest a larger allocation.
Nothing about bitcoin itself changed on Wednesday; the issuance schedule and the network are the same as on Tuesday. The forecast is one firm’s view, built on assumptions it publishes in detail, from a firm that earns fees when investors buy the asset. Coindaro gives no investment advice, and a ten-year target says nothing about the price next month.
What to watch next
Bitwise’s own conditions give a few checkpoints. The first is whether the 30 June 2026 low of $58,717 holds, which the report treats as evidence that drawdowns are shrinking. The second is the $108 billion held by US spot bitcoin ETPs, a figure Bitwise expects to grow faster from 2027 after several large wealth-management platforms approved spot bitcoin ETFs in 2026. The third is 2028, when the issuance schedule cuts new supply to about 0.4% a year, according to the report.
Bitwise published last year’s edition in August and this one in October. The next update will show whether the store-of-value market grew as fast as the model needs, and whether the 1% to 5% allocation range, unchanged across the last two editions, finally moves.