According to Woofun AI, Bitwise research director Ryan Rasmussen drastically raised the 10-year price target for Bitcoin (BTC) from $1.3 million to $1.6 million in 2036 in the newly released “Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions” report.
This counterintuitive pricing adjustment occurred against the backdrop of widespread market pessimism and aimed to provide asset allocators with predictions of return, volatility, and correlation based on the latest economic data to guide Bitcoin inclusion strategies in portfolios.
Looking back at the market trajectory over the past year, Bitcoin has experienced an extremely severe test. From its high in October 2025 to June 2026, the price of BTC fell by more than 50%, falling as low as $59,000.
At the same time, the macroeconomic environment deteriorated rapidly: war broke out in the Middle East, inflationary stickiness continued, upward pressure on interest rates increased, and market concerns about the bursting of the AI bubble caused sentiment to a freezing point, and the media even claimed that Bitcoin was “dead.” In the previous edition of the report, Bitwise predicted that BTC would reach $1.3 million by 2035. Faced with such a sharp pullback, the market expected the forecast to be lowered to $1 million or less.
However, based on the exact same model as 2025 and incorporating updated data, Bitwise not only did not lower the forecast, but instead raised the 10-year outlook to $1.6 million. This adjustment significantly raised the expected CAGR from 28.3% to 34.3%, showing that the underlying logic has not wavered due to short-term fluctuations.
The core variable underpinning this optimistic forecast is confidence that it can reach market size expansion and share ownership. According to data compiled by Woofun AI, the expected size of the value storage market will expand from 91 trillion US dollars to 110 trillion US dollars in the next ten years due to heightened investors' concerns about devaluation of the fiat currency and high inflation; the 10-year expected size of the institutional investment market will jump from 216 trillion US dollars to 303 trillion US dollars.
In addition, markets such as offshore wealth and emerging market currencies that Bitcoin can reach are also expanding at the same time. In the valuation framework, in order to exclude gold already held by institutional investors, the analysis deducted 5% from BCG's estimated full $147 trillion of institutional investment assets to arrive at the current market size of $139.7 trillion. Data sources include Bloomberg, IMF, IFAD, BCG, World Gold Council, Federal Reserve Board and EU Tax Observatory, with price benchmarks as of September 30, 2026.
Although various market size data cutoff dates led to a different CAGR calculation range for the 2036 forecast, the overall trend clearly points to a larger potential price space.
In terms of institutional adoption trends, wealth management platforms such as Wells Fargo Bank (WFC.US) and Merrill Lynch (BAC.US) are gradually moving closer to Bitcoin, and central banks and sovereign wealth funds are also steadily increasing their allocations rather than retreating. Although skeptics point out that capital flows mainly to gold, BTC is still being impacted by a sharp pullback, and the slowdown in ETF capital inflows, the data shows that BTC's 53% decline in this round is far less than the previous bear market, and the correlation with gold has increased.
More importantly, despite the slowdown in ETF purchases, institutions continued to increase their exposure during the decline. Bitcoin's share of the store of value market has grown from less than 1% ten years ago to over 5% today. With the conservative share assumption unchanged, the expansion of the accessible market directly boosted the target price. This shows that even in the face of macroeconomic headwinds, Bitcoin's institutionalization process and value storage properties are still deepening, and its long-term growth potential has not been damaged; on the contrary, it has shown greater resilience in the midst of fluctuations.