Here’s how much Bitcoin may be worth by the end of this decade

All of the cryptocurrency industry appears to be in a panic after $100 million were liquidated in around 24 hours. This has caused Bitcoin‘s price to dip 3.6% during this time, adding on to the 28% it has lost in the entire past month.

BTC to cross $1 million?

While many are fearful of a bull cycle engulfing the market, researchers at Ark Invest have painted a rather bullish narrative for the king coin going forward. In a report published earlier this week, it was predicted that it could in fact exceed a price valuation of $1 million by the end of the decade, a long shot from its current price tag of around $36,000.

To be specific, the report predicted $1.36 million per BTC with a market cap of $28.5 trillion by 2030. This estimated future valuation was reached after the researchers added up the expected values of each of Bitcoin’s eight use cases. These included Remittance Network, Emerging Market Currency, Economic Settlement Network, Nation-State Treasury, Seizure-Resistant Asset, Corporate Treasury, Institutional Investment, and Digital Gold.

Source: ARK Invest

Crypto + remittance = future

The report predicted that by 2030, the top cryptocurrency will account for 50% of global remittances at 1.5x velocity, 10% of emerging markets’ currency, 25% of US bank settlement volumes, 1% of nation-state treasuries worldwide, 5% of global high net worth individual (HNWI) wealth, 2.55% of institutional asset base, 5% of the cash from S&P 500 companies, and 50% of gold’s total market cap.

The report noted that the Bitcoin payments infrastructure has already expanded greatly in the past year, as its cumulative transfer volume increased by 463% in 2021. This allowed BTC’s annual settlement volume to even surpass Visa’s payments volume.

Further adoption through these use cases will cause Bitcoin’s global market cap to inflate 25 times, according to Ark researchers, even as it only makes up a minute percentage of the same.

Moreover, scalability of the network through the Taproot soft fork, along with layer 2 protocols such as the Lightning Network (LN) will further aid BTC’s rise to a leading asset class. It noted that LN channels and BTC capacity on LN increased 119% and 210%, respectively, in the past year.

Bitcoin to advance in DeFi too

What’s more, it also found that almost 1.5% of BTC’s current circulating supply was wrapped in Ethereum by November 2021, indicating that Bitcoin denominated DeFi is also gaining ground.

Other factors contributing to ARK’s bullish outlook were the apparent maturity of BTC investors, who “are focused on long-term fundamentals” along with a significant rise in popularity among institutional holders.

The report was also optimistic about BTC mining’s capability to steer energy production toward renewable sources and noted that it was itself a multi billion-dollar industry. It added,

“Converting energy into a monetary asset can be critical in times of geopolitical uncertainty and financial market volatility… As energy buyers, Bitcoin miners could incentivize new and more efficient forms of energy generation.”

Regardless of the positivity ARK has shown in its future potential for Bitcoin, a hurdle remaining in the way is regulatory uncertainty. As the threat of pushback remains imminent, it could hinder further adoption of the asset.

In fact, the approval of ARK’s own Bitcoin ETF was delayed by the SEC earlier today, and possibilities of receiving a nod remain thin, going by the agency’s track record with similar filings in the past.