Bitwise bumps its 2036 bitcoin target to $1.6M — by growing the markets, not the math

Crypto asset manager Bitwise has raised its 10-year bitcoin price target from $1.3 million to $1.6 million, implying a 34.3% compound annual growth rate through 2036, according to The Block, which reported the figure from Bitwise's 2027 Bitcoin Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions, released Wednesday.

Bitwise builds the number by estimating the size of markets bitcoin might compete in, then assigning it a share. Per a client note from Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan cited by The Block, the firm left those share assumptions unchanged from last year. What moved were the market sizes: its estimate of the 2036 global store-of-value market rose from $91 trillion to $110 trillion, and its institutional-investment market estimate from $216 trillion to $303 trillion. The $1.6 million base case assumes bitcoin captures 25% of the former and 1% of the latter. The report's bear case is $130,686 (2.5% of the store-of-value market); the bull case is $3.67 million (50%).

For context, Bitwise frames 34.3% against roughly 6.7% projected annual returns for U.S. equities and 10.8% for private equity — figures it attributes to averaged projections from JPMorgan, PGIM, BlackRock and Vanguard.

Key facts

• 10-year target raised to $1.6M from $1.3M; 34.3% projected CAGR to 2036 (Bitwise, via The Block).
• Store-of-value market estimate for 2036 raised $91T → $110T; institutional market $216T → $303T; share assumptions unchanged (Hougan client note, via The Block).
• Bear case $130,686; bull case $3.67M (Bitwise report).
• Demand math: BCG estimate of ~$147T in institutional assets, 1–5% allocation → $1.5T–$7.4T demand vs. ~$14B/year new mined supply; 20.1M BTC (95.7% of the 21M cap) already circulating (Bitwise report, via The Block).
• Projected average volatility falls to 27.8%, from 32.9% in last year's report (Bitwise).
• Bitcoin hit June lows near $58,000 and has since risen ~40% to above $80,000, ~53% below its October 2025 high above $126,000 (The Block).

The real-world read

This is a forecast from an interested party, not an event. Bitwise manages bitcoin investment products; a higher long-term target is a sales input, and should be read as one. The upgrade didn't come from new on-chain or demand data — Bitwise explicitly kept its market-share assumptions flat and simply assumed the addressable markets will be larger. Note too the tension: Hougan says the firm is "more bullish" than a year ago while conceding, in the same report, that recent store-of-value demand went to gold rather than bitcoin and that ETF purchases slowed. And a "bear case" of $130,686 still sits above the current ~$80,000 price — a model whose worst case is a gain is doing promotional work. Only one outlet carried the figures here; The Block drew them directly from Bitwise's own report.

Opinion, and whose

Hougan: "We are more bullish on bitcoin today than we were last year," citing the shallow pullback, regulatory progress and demand for hard assets. Bitwise Head of Research Ryan Rasmussen expects bitcoin to be "the best-performing major institutional asset in the world between now and 2036," with volatility weakening as adoption deepens. Both are forecasts from the firm issuing the report.

Sources

• The Block (Tier 2, secondary) — reported all figures, quotes and the report's release date; sourced them from Bitwise's 2027 Bitcoin Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions and an accompanying Hougan client note.
• Bitwise (primary, interested party) — author of the forecast; a bitcoin-product manager projecting bitcoin's returns. Treat as promotional-leaning, not independent analysis.

Not financial advice — forecasts, especially from firms that sell the asset, are opinions, not outcomes.