Bitcoin and Ethereum Market Cap Could Surpass Gold: Report

Despite the many flash crashes, market dips, and long-drawn consolidation phases the market’s faith in Bitcoin remains intact.

In a new research report, American investment firm ARK Invest has shared an optimistic price prediction for BTC and Ethereum for the end of this decade, expecting Bitcoin to reach $1 million while Ethereum to value $180K. 

Long-term Optimism Remains

ARK Invest, the investment management firm led by Cathie Wood, has made a bold prediction claiming that the top two cryptocurrencies by market cap could gain further dominance in the remaining decade. As per the firm’s recently released Big Ideas (BIS) 2022 report, the price of Bitcoin could skyrocket to $1 million by 2030 while Ethereum could see its market capitalization at $20 trillion. 

According to the research, Bitcoin’s market capitalization could scale more than 25-fold in the next decade, with each BTC exceeding $1 million in value by 2030. The heightened retail and institutional interest in the asset class and the increased narrative around Bitcoin as a store of value could strengthen the coin’s case. 

The report further stated that Bitcoin’s institutional holder base appears to be broadening after the launch of more regulated products and adoption by corporations and nation-states such as El Salvador. Notably, Bitcoin’s cumulative transfer volume increased by 463% in 2021 while BTC surpassed Visa’s payments volume in annual settlement volume. 

Furthermore, even though the prediction might seem ambitious, ARK Invest’s believe they could exceed these expectations since those values for Bitcoin and Ethereum would still represent just a fraction of global assets value.

The same can be noted by comparing BTC’s predictions against the global real estate market and global bonds market having market caps of $220 trillion and $124 trillion respectively.

Furthermore, according to the analysis, Bitcoin and Ethereum market caps could also surpass the $10 trillion gold market cap by 2030.

Price Still Needs a Push

Despite the ambitious long-term predictions given by ARK Investment, Bitcoin and Ethereum’s short-term trajectory still looked shaky. While Bitcoin seemed to recover from the recent weekend losses charting close to 15% price gains in the last three days, BTC’s price was still below $40K. 

That said, on the back of the minor BTC gains, Ethereum too was up by 12% in just one day and traded at $2,490.24 at press time. 

For now, Bitcoin’s one-year forecast as per Wallet Investor was $64,414 which was lower than BTC’s last all-time high of above $69,000 while the king coin’s five-year forecast was $179,383.

With the larger market still looking volatile Bitcoin’s short-term future in terms of price appreciation still looked shaky. However, once BTC’s price establishes above $50K the coin could gain quick momentum in the mid-short term.