Will Bitcoin Ever Be More Valuable Than Apple? You Might Be Surprised at What Prediction Markets Say.

Can Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) -- the world's most valuable cryptocurrency -- ever surpass Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) -- the world's most valuable company -- in market cap?

As might be expected, there's a prediction market for that. On Polymarket, there's currently a 7% chance of Bitcoin surpassing Apple in market cap before 2027. Here's what would likely need to happen for Bitcoin (currently valued at $1.5 trillion) to close the gap with Apple (currently valued at $4 trillion).

An AI catalyst for Bitcoin?

What Bitcoin needs more than anything is an AI catalyst. In other words, there needs to be a use case for the Bitcoin blockchain that involves artificial intelligence. The good news for Bitcoin investors is that just such a use case already exists: micro-payments made by AI agents.

The thinking in some crypto circles is that the next generation of AI agents will use Bitcoin to make infinitesimally small transactions. Just as each U.S. dollar is divided into 100 cents, each Bitcoin is divided into 100 million units called Satoshis. That makes Bitcoin very interesting for the types of micro-transactions carried out by AI agents.

Image source: Getty Images.

Of course, there's no guarantee that Bitcoin will become the cryptocurrency of choice for AI agents. Coinbase Global, for example, has been experimenting with stablecoin transactions for AI agents. In doing so, it uses its own proprietary blockchain, Base, which runs on top of Ethereum. So, Bitcoin is hardly the only game in town.

Other factors to watch

Of course, there are other ways for Bitcoin to catch up to Apple and close the market cap gap. For example, tech investors might decide that Apple is no longer such an attractive investment in the post-Tim Cook era. They might determine that the company has become too focused on incremental upgrades, rather than creating truly breakthrough devices.

What if OpenAI, thanks to its partnership with legendary Apple designer Jony Ive, creates a breakthrough device that steals all the thunder from the iPhone? Or what if investors begin to think that Apple does not have a viable AI strategy going forward? Surely, Apple would no longer be worth $4 trillion.

What do prediction markets say?

By looking at some of the prediction markets on Polymarket, you can get a better idea of what investors think will happen in the future. For example, there's now a 20% chance that Anthropic (the AI company behind Claude) will be worth more than Bitcoin by the end of the year.

In other words, Anthropic has a better chance of flipping Bitcoin (20%) than Bitcoin has of flipping Apple (7%). Let that sink in for a moment. That's why I'm so convinced that the AI investment thesis is critical to valuing any company or cryptocurrency right now. If you are not actively building for the AI future, investors won't give you a multi-trillion-dollar valuation.

Bitcoin, of course, wasn't built for AI. It was built for peer-to-peer (human) transactions. But if it can become the go-to cryptocurrency for AI agents, then it might just have a chance of flipping Apple and becoming the most valuable asset in the world.

Dominic Basulto has positions in Bitcoin and Ethereum. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple, Bitcoin, and Ethereum. The Motley Fool recommends Coinbase Global. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.