Blockstream co-founder and CEO Adam Back said that Bitcoin's long-term growth potential remains significant, and the main inflow of institutional capital is still ahead. He said this on air on CNBC.
He emphasized that he had made a personal bet on bitcoin overcoming the seven-figure mark before the end of the current cycle, whose benchmark is associated with the end of 2028.
"I made a bet that Bitcoin will exceed a million dollars by the end of the cycle," Beck said.
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Why institutional demand could grow
“95% or even more of this demand is still ahead in the coming years,” Beck said, referring to potential demand from institutional investors and professionally managed investment products.
He clarified that this refers to his own assessment of the future market, not a measured indicator.
According to Beck, one of the sources of future demand could be mutual funds and model investment portfolios of large management companies, in particular BlackRock. Through such products, access to bitcoin is gained not only by investors who buy cryptocurrency independently, but also by a wider circle of depositors whose savings are managed by professional managers.
At the same time, the CEO of Blockstream warned against too straightforward an interpretation of spot bitcoin ETF statistics. According to him, part of the inflows and outflows of funds may be related to technical strategies, in particular basis trading, rather than to a change in investors' long-term attitude toward the asset.
Note that over the past week, spot Bitcoin ETFs lost $1.28 billion.
Beck also called bitcoin digital gold, whose value is supported by its limited supply. The interview description separately mentions the 200-week moving average of the first cryptocurrency, which at the time of the conversation was near $67,000.
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Beck expects Bitcoin at $1 million
According to the entrepreneur's assessment, demand from professional asset managers could grow substantially in the coming years, and the price of the first cryptocurrency could exceed $1 million by the end of the cycle.
Beck's positive forecast contrasts with the more restrained estimates of some market participants. In particular, VanEck previously cited $3 million per 1 BTC by 2050 subject to widespread use of the asset in global trade, while Bitwise raised its ten-year forecast to $1.6 million.
At the same time, JPMorgan Asset Management has built into its long-term model an average annual return for bitcoin of 10% over the next decade.
Among the short-term risks for the asset, analysts also note underperformance compared to the stock market and competition for speculative capital. Against this backdrop, Beck emphasizes the long-term factors of demand and bitcoin's scarcity.
He also noted that the development of artificial intelligence could pose threats to cryptocurrency exchanges and online services, but does not necessarily pose the same danger to the Bitcoin protocol itself.
Recall that Bloomberg analysts emphasized bitcoin's loss of status as the main risk asset amid its lag behind the stock market.