Analyst predicts Bitcoin to $1M as markets surge

The cryptocurrency markets are finally showing some strength after a pretty lackluster start to the year.
On March 16, Bitcoin (BTC) pushed back above $75,000, jumping nearly 6% on the day. Of course, it did not hold for long and has since slipped back to the $73,000 range.
Still, the move was enough to bring some positive momentum back into the market.
And whenever prices start moving again, the big narratives come right back into focus.
Because at the end of the day, the goal hasn’t really changed.
For many in crypto, it’s still about one thing, Bitcoin reaching the million-dollar mark.
Related: Bitcoin, XRP surge ahead of FOMC meeting
Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan is making a fresh case for B
In a memo published on March 10, Hougan laid out what he described as a “basic mistake” in how analysts predict Bitcoin’s long-term potential.
“The big thing people miss when talking about bitcoin,” Hougan wrote, is that the store-of-value market itself is expanding.
Hougan warns of “a pretty basic mistake”
Hougan, who leads investment strategy at crypto asset manager Bitwise with more than $15 billion in client assets called Bitcoin (BTC) as a direct competitor to gold in the global store-of-value market.
Using a simple model, total market size, Bitcoin’s share and its fixed supply of 21 million coins, he explained why a $1-million valuation initially seems unrealistic.
“Given the current market size, bitcoin would need to capture more than 50% of the store-of-value market to reach $1 million. That is a very high bar,” he said.
However, Hougan argued that this assumption ignores how quickly the market has grown historically. He pointed out that gold’s market cap has expanded from roughly $2.5 trillion in 2004 to nearly $40 trillion today.
“If this growth rate continues, the global ‘store of value’ market will be $121 trillion in 10 years,” Hougan wrote, adding: “At that level, bitcoin only needs to take 17% of the market to be worth $1 million a coin.”
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Institutional adoption changes the equation
Hougan also noted several structural shifts in Bitcoin adoption over the past few years, particularly among institutional investors.
“A few years ago, there were no U.S. bitcoin ETFs and few institutional holders,” he noted. “Now, bitcoin ETFs have proven to be the fastest-growing ETFs of all time.”
He added that allocations are evolving as volatility declines.