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Analysts weigh in on Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan’s $1 million bitcoin call

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Analysts weigh in on Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan’s $1 million bitcoin call

Bitcoin could eventually reach $1 million per coin if it captures a larger share of the global store-of-value market currently dominated by gold and government bonds, according to Bitwise Asset Management CIO Matt Hougan.

In a report earlier this week, Hougan said bitcoin’s long-term upside depends less on short-term market cycles and more on how much of the world’s wealth preservation market the cryptocurrency absorbs over time.

“One million sounds crazy,” said Hougan. “It implies bitcoin will rise 14x from today’s price.”

He pointed to several factors supporting that forecast, among them the rapid growth of the global store-of-value market, including gold, government bonds and other defensive assets, which has expanded from roughly $2.5 trillion in 2004 to nearly $40 trillion today. Bitcoin currently represents only about 4% of that market by value.

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If the largest cryptocurrency were to capture roughly half of that market under current conditions, its price could approach that $1 million mark within roughly a decade, Hougan said. If the broader store-of-value market continues expanding, bitcoin would require a smaller share to reach that level.

The $1 million price fixation

The $1 million forecast has become a recurring theme across the crypto industry. President Donald Trump’s son Eric recently doubled down on his $1 million BTC call. In August, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said bitcoin could reach that price by 2030.

Jack Dorsey, who ran X (formerly Twitter) until 2021 and co-founded payments firm Block (formerly Square), said bitcoin could reach $1 million in five years. Arthur Hayes, former BitMEX CEO, believes it could come as soon as 2028. Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest projected that bitcoin could reach $3.8 million by the end of the decade. Bernstein in 2024 forecast $1 million by 2033.

So why has the $1 million target become such a widely cited benchmark for bitcoin? CoinDesk asked several market analysts.

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“It’s a clean headline and shorthand for the idea that Bitcoin could rival gold as a store of value. The exact number matters less than the share of global wealth Bitcoin captures,” said Mati Greenspan, market analyst and Quantum Economics founder.

For Jason Fernandes, also a market analyst and an AdLunam co-founder, the milestone is more psychological than a precise valuation target, reflecting the belief that bitcoin could ultimately win the store-of-value debate.

However, he also believes part of the narrative is driven by marketing dynamics. “Some of the narrative is promotional because round numbers travel well and align with holder incentives,” Fernandes said, though he added that the underlying thesis is not purely hype.

“I think many investors make a ‘static denominator’ mistake, valuing bitcoin against today’s store-of-value market instead of a much larger future one,” he said.

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For Fernandes, the real question is not whether $1 million bitcoin is theoretically possible, but whether institutional adoption compounds long enough to justify that price.

Analysts agree on direction, but not the timeline

Some of the analysts who shared their comments with CoinDesk said Hougan’s projection is plausible over the long term, though most frame it as a decade-scale adoption story rather than a near-term forecast.

“Geopolitical tension strengthens the Bitcoin thesis,” said Greenspan. “In uncertain times, investors look for neutral stores of value, and Bitcoin increasingly sits in that bucket alongside gold.”

Greenspan said the milestone is possible but would likely take a decade or more, requiring continued institutional adoption and broader regulatory clarity.

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Fernandes said Hougan’s argument is essentially a market-share thesis. Bitcoin does not need to replace gold outright, he said; it only needs to capture a portion of a growing global store-of-value market.

“A $1 million bitcoin assumes long-term adoption and market-share gains within the global store-of-value market,” Fernandes said. “It’s a thesis about bitcoin’s end state if it matures into a major global monetary asset.”

Institutional adoption remains the key driver

Hougan has argued that bitcoin’s fixed supply of 21 million coins and its decentralized network give it characteristics similar to those of traditional stores of value, such as gold.

Fernandes said the long-term $1 million thesis depends largely on continued institutional adoption and growth in the global store-of-value market.

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“BTC doesn’t need to replace gold or fiat; it only needs to capture about 17% of a projected $121 trillion store-of-value market over the next decade to justify a $1 million price,” Fernandes said.

Greenspan said geopolitical uncertainty could further strengthen bitcoin’s appeal as a neutral asset.

“In uncertain times, investors look for neutral stores of value, and bitcoin increasingly sits in that bucket alongside gold,” he said, though he added that reaching such a valuation would likely take years of sustained adoption.

Nima Beni, founder of Bitlease, said the timeline could accelerate if confidence in traditional financial assets weakens.

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“Bitcoin reaches $1 million when confidence in traditional ‘safe’ assets breaks,” he said, pointing to potential sovereign debt crises or disruptions in the gold market as possible catalysts.

Despite the bullish projections, analysts said bitcoin’s path toward such valuations would depend more on long-term adoption and macroeconomic conditions than on short-term market cycles.

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Crypto World

Is This BTC’s Calm Before the Major Storm?

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Is This BTC's Calm Before the Major Storm?

Bitcoin is extending its recovery, but the market is now approaching a more meaningful technical decision point. After holding the $60,000 region and building a series of higher lows, BTC has pushed back into the low-$70,000s, where short-term momentum is improving. Still, the broader structure has not fully flipped bullish, which means this move is best viewed as a test of resistance until proven otherwise.

Bitcoin Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

On the daily chart, Bitcoin continues to trade below both the 100-day and 200-day moving averages, keeping the higher-timeframe trend cautious. The price is also still sitting inside the broader descending structure, even though the latest rebound has clearly improved conditions compared to the panic sell-off seen near the February lows.

The key level to watch remains the $75,000 to $80,000 resistance area, which previously acted as support before turning into supply. As long as BTC stays below that zone, the broader move can still be interpreted as a rebound within a larger corrective phase. On the downside, the $60,000 to $62,000 area remains the main support base, and it is still the level buyers need to defend to preserve the current recovery structure.

BTC/USDT 4-Hour Chart

The 4-hour chart looks stronger. Bitcoin has been climbing within a rising channel, and price is once again pressing toward the upper boundary of that formation. The market is now trading around $71,000 to $72,000, with RSI also firming near the upper half of its range, which reflects improving short-term momentum.

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That said, BTC is approaching a confluence zone where channel resistance overlaps with horizontal supply around $73,000 to $75,000. This makes the current area especially important. A clean breakout above it would strengthen the case for continuation into higher resistance, while another rejection could send price back toward the middle or lower end of the channel and keep the market in consolidation mode.

On-Chain Analysis

The on-chain picture adds a more constructive undertone. The Spot Average Order Size chart shows that recent activity is still being driven more by larger participants than by aggressive retail-style behavior. Historically, that kind of backdrop tends to be healthier than a move led by euphoric small buyers, because it suggests stronger hands are still active even as price trades below the cycle highs.

At the same time, the chart does not show the kind of broad retail frenzy usually associated with late-stage blow-off conditions. In practical terms, that means the current recovery still looks relatively controlled from an on-chain participation perspective. So while Bitcoin is facing an important technical resistance zone on the charts, the order-size data suggests the market has not yet entered a fully overheated phase.

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Buterin Says Its Time To Revisit Idea Simplifying Ethereum Node Setup

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Decentralization, Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, Nodes

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin posted a proposal, or a pull request, on Saturday that would merge the backend programs used by nodes to interact with Ethereum’s Beacon Chain, which handles consensus and staking, and the protocol’s execution layer into one unified code structure to simplify node setup.

Ethereum node runners, also called validators, currently have to run two separate programs, which each require setup and synchronization to coordinate and communicate the data produced by Ethereum’s consensus and execution layers.

This raises the technical complexity of running a node or providing validation services for the Ethereum network, preventing ordinary users from running their own infrastructure and forcing reliance on third-party service providers.

Decentralization, Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, Nodes
Source: Vitalik Buterin

“I feel like at every level, we have implicitly made this decision that running a node is this oh so scary DevOps task that it is ok to leave to professionals,” Buterin said in a post on X. He continued:

“It is not. We need to reverse this. Running your own Ethereum infrastructure should be the basic right of every individual and household. ‘The hardware requirement is high, therefore it’s okay for the DevOps skill and time requirements to also be high,’ is not an excuse.”

Even those who can afford the high-end computing hardware to set up an Ethereum node and have the technical expertise typically lack the time to set them up, Buterin said, adding that “nodes should be easy.”

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The Ethereum network and other smart contract blockchains have faced criticism for the technical complexity and hardware requirements to run a node, which has also raised centralization concerns about those networks.

Related: Ethereum Foundation publishes mandate clarifying role and goals

Buterin proposes partially stateless nodes to further decentralize the network

In May 2025, Buterin proposed partially stateless nodes, which do not maintain the full block history and only keep data that the node runner requires.

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This reduces the hardware costs and data storage requirements for users running nodes for personal purposes, like sending transactions and verifying the blockchain. 

Decentralization, Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, Nodes
An illustration showing how partially stateless nodes would only save portions of the blockchain state. Source: Ethereum Research

Disk space is usually the primary bottleneck for node operators, according to Go-Ethereum (GETH). Smart contract blockchain networks, like Ethereum, generate significant quantities of data that require ever-increasing storage space, making specialized node hardware a necessity.

“A market structure dominated by a few remote procedure call (RPC) providers is one that will face strong pressure to deplatform or censor users. Many RPC providers already exclude entire countries,” Buterin wrote.

In late January, Buterin said he had set aside 16,384 Ether, worth about $45 million, from his personal holdings to support privacy-preserving technologies, open hardware and secure, verifiable software. He added that the funds would be deployed gradually over the coming years as the Ethereum Foundation enters a period of what he described as “mild austerity,” while continuing to pursue its technical roadmap.

Magazine: Ethereum’s Fusaka fork explained for dummies: What the hell is PeerDAS?

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