Although Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) is sitting as of this writing almost 25% below its all-time high of $73,750 reached earlier this year, there are plenty of bullish crypto investors who are still convinced that Bitcoin will skyrocket over the long run.
Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) may be trading almost 25% below its all-time high of $73,750 reached earlier this year, but there are plenty of bullish crypto investors who are still convinced that Bitcoin will skyrocket over the long run. Among them is Michael Saylor, founder and executive chairman of MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR), who recently doubled down on his prediction that a single Bitcoin would be worth $13 million by the year 2045.
At last report, MicroStrategy owned 226,500 Bitcoins with a market value around $14 billion. It touts itself as “the largest corporate holder of bitcoin and the world’s first bitcoin development company.” Bloomberg reported last month that Saylor himself owns about $1 billion worth of Bitcoins.
Based on Bitcoin’s recent price of $55,000, a $13 million target represents an astronomical 23,000% return if you buy today and hold for the next two decades. Obviously, a lot has to happen for that to become a reality. Let’s take a closer look.
Bitcoin’s long-run performance
Yes, seeing a $13 million price tag for Bitcoin can induce a fair amount of sticker shock. But if you dig into the numbers, the math actually starts to make sense. And a lot of that has to do with the compounding power of money. If any asset is allowed to compound in value for a long period of time, the results have the potential to shock.
In the case of Bitcoin, it would require a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30% for the magic to happen and it to jump from $55,000 now to $13 million in 2045. In other words, if Bitcoin can increase in value by 30% per year, for the next 21 years, an upfront investment of $55,000 would turn into $13 million.
And, while it may be unlikely, a CAGR of 30% for Bitcoin is not out of the question. From 2011 to 2021, Bitcoin delivered annualized returns of 230% per year. And Bitcoin returned approximately 150% in 2023. Already this year, Bitcoin is up more than 30%. Over the past five years, the only blemish was 2022, when Bitcoin fell nearly 65%.
So what can investors realistically expect? In an interview this month with CNBC, Saylor predicted that during the next two decades, Bitcoin’s annual return would steadily fall over time, from about 44% a year to 40% to 35% to 30% to 25% to… well, you get the idea. The final long-run number for Bitcoin, says Saylor, would be the annual return of the S&P 500 plus an extra 8% to compensate investors for the extra risk.
At some point, of course, it’s worth taking a moment to ponder what a price tag of $13 million really means for Bitcoin. Based on its current circulating coin supply of 20 million, that implies a future market cap of $260 trillion. That dwarfs the value of any tech stock today, and in fact, it dwarfs the value of the entire S&P 500, which today sits at around $45 trillion.
Even if we assume that U.S. stocks will grow at a rate of 10% per year over the next 20 years, a price tag of $13 million still implies that Bitcoin would represent an astonishing amount of the world’s wealth in the year 2045. For that reason alone, it’s worth having a healthy dose of skepticism about Bitcoin’s future price trajectory.
Bitcoin as an asset class
For much of its history, Bitcoin has been uncorrelated with any major asset class, and that has made it very unique from a risk diversification perspective. Quite simply, Bitcoin can zig when other assets zag.
Thus, Bitcoin is growing in favor with billionaire hedge fund managers, who increasingly view it as a way to hedge risk. In some cases, that risk might be economic, such as the risk of inflation. In other cases, that risk might be geopolitical. In the CNBC interview, Saylor uses the example of missile strikes to illustrate this point. What do you do as an investor if you wake up one morning and hear that there have been missile strikes somewhere in the world?
Until recently, the answer to that question might have been: Buy gold. But there is growing popularity in the notion that Bitcoin is “digital gold.” Some investors are
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