Bitcoin Could Hit ₱59.02 million ($1 million) by 2036 Without Toppling Gold

Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan says Bitcoin could reach ₱59.02 million ($1 million) per coin in 10 years under what he calls reasonably conservative assumptions.

The projection doesn't require Bitcoin to overtake gold — just capture 17% of a rapidly growing store-of-value market. Bitcoin currently holds about 4% of the global store-of-value market, with a market cap around ₱82.62 trillion ($1.4 trillion) compared to gold's $36 trillion. Hougan's memo argues that the total store-of-value market will grow to roughly $121 trillion over the next decade, driven by concerns about government debt and currency debasement.

Gold's own growth pattern supports the thesis. When the first US gold ETFs launched in 2004, the gold market was worth $2.5 trillion. It's grown at a 13% compound annual rate since then, reaching today's $36 trillion despite higher interest rates and less quantitative easing in recent years. Hougan said the mistake people make when evaluating Bitcoin's potential is ignoring this growth.

Hougan acknowledged the $1 million target sounds unreasonable to many, including himself for years. But he also said there's equal risk that these projections are too conservative — that the store-of-value market will grow faster as debt concerns reach crisis levels, and that Bitcoin could end up taking much more than 17% of the market in ten years.

The main risks to the projection involve a government pullback from quantitative easing or sustained higher interest rates, both of which could reduce demand for safe-haven assets like gold and Bitcoin. Bitcoin first hit $100,000 in December 2024, meaning a $1 million price would represent a 14-fold increase from that level.