Bitwise CIO: Bitcoin could reach $1 million in the long term, with its potential stemming from its "digital gold" positioning

Gate News, March 10 — In a recent memo titled “How Bitcoin Gets to $1 Million,” Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan stated that Bitcoin could potentially reach $1 million per coin in the future. He believes that from the perspective of the global “store of value” market, Bitcoin is gradually competing with gold for the position of digital store of value assets, and its long-term potential will become clearer.

Hougan pointed out that the current global store of value market size is approximately $38 trillion, with gold accounting for about $36 trillion and Bitcoin around $1.4 trillion, making up less than 4% of the market. He believes that many investors underestimate Bitcoin’s potential because they overlook the growth rate of the store of value market itself. For example, when the first gold ETF was launched in the U.S. in 2004, the global gold market was only about $2.5 trillion. Today, it has approached $40 trillion, with a compound annual growth rate of about 13%.

If the store of value market continues to expand at a similar rate over the next decade, its size could reach approximately $121 trillion. In this scenario, Bitcoin would only need to capture about 17% of the market share for its price to reach $1 million. Hougan also noted that Bitcoin spot ETFs have become one of the fastest-growing ETF products in history, and institutional investors—including Harvard University’s endowment fund and Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund—have already begun allocating to Bitcoin, laying the foundation for this outlook.