Bitwise Raises 2036 Bitcoin Price Target to $1.6 Million, Projects 34% Annualized Returns

Bitwise Updates Long-Term Bitcoin Forecast

Crypto asset manager Bitwise released its annual 2027 Bitcoin Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions report on October 28, 2026, raising its 10-year bitcoin price target to $1.6 million by 2036. The new base case target is up from the firm’s 2025 forecast of $1.3 million.

Bitwise projects bitcoin will deliver a 34.3% compound annual growth rate over the 10-year period, which it says would outperform other major asset classes including U.S. stocks and private equity.

Key Forecast Details

• The $1.6 million base case assumes bitcoin captures 25% of the global store-of-value market and 1% of institutional investment assets by 2036.
• Bitwise’s bear case puts bitcoin at $130,686 by 2036 with a 2.5% share of the store-of-value market, while its bull case reaches $3.67 million with a 50% share.
• The firm’s 34.3% annual return projection for bitcoin compares to an average 6.7% forecast for U.S. equities and 10.8% for private equity, based on estimates from JPMorgan, PGIM, BlackRock, and Vanguard.
• Bitwise expects average annual bitcoin volatility to fall to 27.8% over the next decade, down from its 32.9% forecast in 2025.

Reasoning Behind the Higher Target

Bitwise said it kept its market share assumptions for bitcoin unchanged from last year’s report. The higher target comes from upward revisions to the estimated total size of two key markets by 2036: the global store-of-value market (raised from $91 trillion to $110 trillion) and the institutional investment market (raised from $216 trillion to $303 trillion).

Limited new bitcoin supply is another key factor cited in the report. The firm notes that only $14 billion in new bitcoin is created via mining each year, compared to expected institutional demand of $1.5 trillion to $7.4 trillion over the next decade. Bitcoin has a fixed maximum supply of 21 million coins, and 95.7% of that supply is already in circulation.

Bitwise also points to the shallower recent price drawdown as a sign of bitcoin’s maturing market. The roughly 53% drop from bitcoin’s October 2025 all-time high above $126,000 is smaller than the 86%, 84%, and 77% drops seen after the 2013, 2017, and 2021 record highs, respectively.

Comments From Bitwise Leadership

Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan said the firm is more bullish on bitcoin now than it was last year, citing the shallow four-year pullback, ongoing regulatory progress, and growing demand for hard assets like gold.

Hougan acknowledged that much of the recent demand for store-of-value assets has gone to gold rather than bitcoin, and that purchases of bitcoin ETFs — exchange-traded funds that hold bitcoin and trade on stock exchanges — have slowed. He added that institutions still continued to add bitcoin exposure during the downturn.

Bitwise Head of Research Ryan Rasmussen said bitcoin will likely remain a volatile asset with sharp downturns, but that price swings are expected to weaken as institutional adoption deepens. The firm expects bitcoin to be the best-performing major institutional asset between now and 2036, according to the report.

Sources

• The Block