Will Bitcoin Reach $1 Million?
No one can know for sure whether Bitcoin will reach $1 million. However, if Bitcoin adoption continues to grow and the currency becomes a store of value akin to gold, then a $1 million price tag could eventually be reached.
Since the mid-2010s, Bitcoin gained a staggering +60,890,000%, shattering early adopters’ wildest predictions. However, the $1 million milestone might be out of reach for the world’s largest cryptocurrency if substantial adoption among institutions doesn’t come to pass. On the flip side, if central banks and other financial institutions start adopting Bitcoin heavily, the sky is the limit.
In this article, we are going to analyze different scenarios that could see Bitcoin reach $1 million and examine predictions made by some of the most influential investors.
Will Bitcoin reach $1 million?
It is possible for Bitcoin to reach $1 million as the currency has shown a tendency to grow at an exponential pace in the past. However, Bitcoin reaching $1 million would likely constitute a major shift in the way our society operates. With that said, let’s examine the possibility of Bitcoin reaching $1 million from a fundamental point of view and a technical point of view.
Fundamental analysis POV
While it is impossible to predict whether Bitcoin will ever reach a price of $1 million, we can make some assumptions regarding the possibility of a 7 figure price tag. The first thing we need to consider is Bitcoin’s market capitalization – at the current price of roughly $25,000, Bitcoin has a market cap of roughly $500 billion. At $1 million per coin, Bitcoin’s total market value would be a whopping $19.4 trillion. That’s nearly twice as large as gold’s market cap and roughly half as much as the total value of the US stock market.
Tot. Market Cap
Bitcoin at $25K $485 billion
Bitcoin at $1M $19.4 trillion
Gold $13.1 trillion
US Stock Market $40.5 trillion
US GDP (2021) $23.3 trillion
If Bitcoin were to reach $1 million and command a $20 trillion market cap, it would likely mean that that money has come from either gold or equities. How likely that shift is, it’s impossible to say with certainty.
One potential scenario that could see enough capital flow to Bitcoin to facilitate the growth to $1 million is that investors lose their trust in the US Dollar and the economy at large. If inflation doesn’t subside in the coming years and macroeconomic conditions continue to worsen, it isn’t inconceivable that capital would start flowing into Bitcoin in search of a stable asset that isn’t controlled by any country or government and can be easily sent across borders.
In any case, Bitcoin growing to $1 million would almost certainly mean that society has undergone severe changes and that our current monetary system and economy have been substantially transformed. In such a scenario, Bitcoin could emerge as an asset that is used as a long-term store of value among individuals and institutions (thus taking a chunk out of gold’s na equities’ market share).
Technical analysis POV
While the above arguments were focused primarily on fundamentals, we can tackle the question of Bitcoin reaching the $1 million milestone from a technical standpoint as well. Historically, Bitcoin’s price movement has been heavily influenced by Bitcoin halvings, preprogrammed events that reduce the mining rewards by half every four years.
The next Bitcoin halving will occur in April 2024. It will see the Bitcoin mining reward drop from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block. According to Bitcoin analyst Plan B’s stack-to-flow model, Bitcoin could come very close to reaching $1 million after the 2024 Bitcoin halving.
When will Bitcoin reach $1 million?
The fastest Bitcoin could conceivably reach $1 million is sometime during the next halving cycle, which will start in April 2024. However, it seems way more likely that it will take longer for Bitcoin to reach $1 million.
According to our Bitcoin price prediction, BTC could surpass its previous all-time high and reach $72,000 in the first half of next year.
What do the experts predict?
There are quite a few prominent investors and crypto personalities that see Bitcoin reaching $1 million in the future. Find out what they have to say.
Cathie Wood
Earlier this year, Cathie Wood's Ark Investment Management updated the price prediction for Bitcoin. The investment firm now forecasts that Bitcoin will reach $1.48 million by 2030, which would constitute a +5,705% price increase. "Its network fundamentals have strengthened and its holder base has become more long-term focused,” the Ark Investment Management report noted and added, "Contagion caused by centralized counterparties has elevated Bitcoin's value propositions: decentralization, audibility, and transparency."
Arthur Hayes
Former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes believes that Bitcoin will reach $1,000,000 by 2030 due to China’s decision to reduce the Reverse Repo Rate (RRR) by 0.25 percentage points. He previously predicted that Bitcoin’s growth to $1 million would be driven by sanctions levied against Russia following the attack on Ukraine.
Jesse Powell
During the last year’s interview on Bloomberg TV, Jesse Powell, the CEO of Kraken, expressed his belief that Bitcoin has the potential to reach the impressive $1 million price point within the next ten years. Powell emphasized that the depreciation of traditional fiat currencies and the increasing quest for a more reliable reserve asset would be the driving forces behind this surge in Bitcoin's value:
"I think, in the near term, people see it surpassing gold as a store of value. So, I think $1 million as a price target within the next 10 years is very reasonable.”
Michael Novogratz
Speaking at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, Galaxy Investment Partners CEO Mike Novogratz said that Bitcoin could eventually reach the $1 million mark. However, Novogratz added that if Bitcoin would significantly surpass $1 million, it would likely mean that Western society has “fallen apart”.
While we've spent most of this article talking about the long-term potential of BTC, let's wrap up the article focusing on the short to medium-term. According to the Bitcoin price prediction algorithm, BTC could see a major rally toward the end of the year, with the price breaking $50,000 at the end of December.
Going into 2024, Bitcoin could proceed to rally beyond $100,000 and reach a high point of nearly $120,000 in April. From there, the price is expected to retrace to sub $60,000 levels. However, the next Bitcoin halving, projected for the end of April, could provide another doze of bullish optimism among investors and help Bitcoin reach new heights as we proceed further along into the fourth halving cycle.
The bottom line: Bitcoin could reach $1 million, but it would likely come off the heels of big societal changes
In order for Bitcoin to reach $1 million, it would have to increase by roughly 40x from its current price. While that seems quite possible given Bitcoin’s historical performance, the market cap of Bitcoin would have to grow to roughly $20 trillion in order for the $1 million price tag to become a reality. That would entail a large shift in the way the wealth is stored and likely constitute a flight of capital from the US dollar and equities into Bitcoin. How likely is that to occur remains to be seen.