Earlier this year, I predicted that Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) would reach $150,000 before 2026 ends. The coin is trading near $80,000 right now, which means that my call would require a near-doubling from here to come true. That sounds ambitious because it is.
Still, every driver and structural force behind the original thesis has either held steady or intensified since the start of the year. Let’s walk through what’s happening with Bitcoin right now.
Image source: Getty Images.
This asset is increasingly in demand, and that’ll likely push prices up eventually.
Earlier this year, I predicted that Bitcoin (BTC 0.38%) would reach $150,000 before 2026 ends. The coin is trading near $80,000 right now, which means that my call would require a near-doubling from here to come true. That sounds ambitious because it is.
Still, every driver and structural force behind the original thesis has either held steady or intensified since the start of the year. Let’s walk through what’s happening with Bitcoin right now.
Image source: Getty Images.
The supply situation is still grinding on
The most important factor that’s pushing Bitcoin’s price up is its ever-increasing scarcity.
After the April 2024 halving, only 450 bitcoins are mined each day. Meanwhile, Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have been absorbing as many as 15,000 to 20,000 coins per week during the recent inflow streaks in early May. What’s more, cumulative net inflows into U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs since their January 2024 launch are nearly at $60 billion.
Nearly 95% of the 21 million coins that will ever exist have already been mined, and an estimated 3 million to 4 million of those are permanently lost, so they’re not in the circulating portion of the supply anymore. The coin’s float available for public trading is thus small, and shrinking, which means its price could be more sensitive to the upside in response to demand. When demand from just one type of buyer outpaces the production of new supply so dramatically, the underlying asset’s price is very likely to adjust upward eventually, once buyers need to start competing with each other.
Bitcoin
Today’s Change
(-0.38%) $-308.23
Current Price
$80757.00
Perhaps in anticipation of that state, digital asset treasury (DAT) companies are hoarding the coin. The most important DAT is Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy. It held 818,334 coins as of late April, having spent more than $61 billion accumulating the asset. Given that Strategy alone currently holds about 4% of Bitcoin’s maximum possible supply, it’s a meaningful contributor to the coin’s scarcity.
Then there’s another relatively new group of buyers, the sovereigns. For instance, the Czech National Bank (CNB) is now running a two-year pilot test of a 1% Bitcoin allocation within its roughly $180 billion in central bank reserves, after its internal research found that doing so could improve its returns without materially raising its overall risk exposure. In other words, one central bank is currently stress-testing Bitcoin alongside more traditional reserve assets like bonds and gold, which could signal a huge amount of growth for the asset if other banks follow its example.
What could rain on the parade
Before getting too exuberant about all the Bitcoin adoption and purchasing by deep-pocketed entities, remember that price targets aren’t anything to bet your portfolio on. It’s better to think of price targets as proposed scenarios that could result in an asset’s price heading in a specific direction, over a certain period of time, and as a product of a given group of assumed drivers or catalysts.
In this case, my target assumes that ETF demand will remain net positive, that institutional and sovereign interest holds and perhaps even increases, and that the presently bearish and highly turbulent macro backdrop doesn’t push investors out of risk assets wholesale — which it might.
Some of those other assumptions are already under pressure, too. Strategy itself recently signaled that it might consider selling some of its coins under certain conditions. If the world’s largest corporate holder starts selling a lot of Bitcoin, it wouldn’t look good, and it could potentially cause cascades of selling in ETFs as well.
Bitcoin doesn’t need a miracle to be a good investment today. It needs time for its supply constriction to continue grinding, continued institutional interest, and a permissive macro environment. A price of $150,000 before the end of 2026 is an attainable mark, assuming those conditions hold. That implies that it might be a pretty good purchase at its current price, which is something I’m banking on.
