Now that Bitcoin (BTC -5.65%) has crossed the $100,000 mark, it’s only natural to ask: Just how much higher can it really go? After all, Bitcoin is up more than 30,000% over the past decade, and is now a $2 trillion asset. Long-term investors may find it hard to envision Bitcoin replicating its past decade’s performance.
The good news is that Bitcoin is likely nowhere close to hitting its true ceiling. According to Larry Fink, CEO of asset management giant BlackRock, Bitcoin could eventually soar as high as $700,000. Based on today’s prices, that would represent a nearly 600% return on investment.
Bitcoin’s path to $700,000
In an interview with Bloomberg at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Fink outlined a potential scenario that could send Bitcoin on a path to $700,000. From his perspective, it all starts with institutional adoption of Bitcoin. And the best way to measure this level of adoption is by tracking the allocation that institutional investors are willing to make to Bitcoin in their own portfolios.
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Right now, we’re at a point where allocating even 1% of a portfolio to Bitcoin is considered risky, especially if you’re a pension fund, endowment fund, or other large institutional investor. In order for Bitcoin to reach its true potential, that percentage must become considerably higher. As Fink sees it, it may take an allocation of 5% to really get meaningful results with Bitcoin.
That 5% figure coincides with a similar forecast made by Cathie Wood of Ark Invest. As part of her Bitcoin valuation model, she considered a number of different scenarios for institutional adoption. In the bear case scenario, institutional adoption stays at the 1% level. But in a bull case scenario, institutional adoption moves as high as 6.5%. If that happens, says Wood, Bitcoin could actually reach a price of $1 million by the year 2030.
Fear, greed, and Bitcoin
For many retail investors, the decision to invest in Bitcoin is based on a belief that its ultimate upside potential is uncapped. They’ve seen how Bitcoin has the potential to deliver 10x, 100x, and even 1000x returns over a remarkably short period, and they’re willing to believe that Bitcoin will continue to deliver these same returns over the foreseeable future.
However, for institutional investors, there is an entirely different reason to invest in Bitcoin. Instead of being motivated by greed, they are motivated by fear. They are looking for ways to diversify away risk, and to protect themselves from economic uncertainty. They view Bitcoin as a form of “digital gold” that can still perform well, even if the rest of the global economy is in tatters.
As Fink pointed out in his interview at the World Economic Forum, this pro-Bitcoin argument resonates especially well with the largest of the institutional investors — the sovereign wealth funds. For them, investing in Bitcoin is a way to insulate themselves against the risk of geopolitical instability or the risk of currency debasement. In short, Bitcoin is the ultimate hedge, even better than physical gold.
The importance of the Bitcoin ETFs
Until last year, these institutional investors did not have an easy, transparent, and highly regulated way to invest in Bitcoin. But then came the new spot Bitcoin ETFs in January (including a popular one from BlackRock), which made investing in Bitcoin as simple and easy as investing in a tech stock.
That’s why there is so much attention paid to investor inflows to these spot Bitcoin ETFs. While this is a simplification, increased ETF investment implies greater Bitcoin adoption, potentially boosting its future value. Conversely, if investor inflows slow down to a trickle, that’s bad news. It means many institutional investors may have moved on to other, less risky assets.
So keep your eyes on spot Bitcoin ETFs. After a brief pause during the winter holiday season, investor inflows appear to be picking up once again in 2025. If Larry Fink is right, and institutional investors eventually decide to boost their Bitcoin allocations much higher, then that steady inflow might become a tsunami. That, in turn, could send the price of Bitcoin soaring.
