Can Bitcoin Reach $1 Million by 2030? One Crypto Leader Is Skeptical.

With Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) on a hot rally and trading near $79,000 as of Aug. 25, it's a good time to revisit some of the price targets that were proposed during the last bull market. As you may recall, many of the industry's leaders suggested that it'd one day be worth as much as $1 million per coin -- and potentially as soon as 2030.

But Markus Thielen, head of research at 10x Research, rejects that idea, calling a price of $1 million mathematically impossible. Let's examine his argument and see if it checks out.

Image source: Getty Images.

Projections, meet reality

Today, Bitcoin has a market cap of about $1.6 trillion, which is spread across 20.1 million coins.

At $1 million each, the existing supply would be worth roughly $20.1 trillion, and if 100% of the maximum possible 21 million BTC were in circulation, the supply would be worth just a bit more, at $21 trillion on the nose.

Given that the coin's existing supply will increase slowly between now and 2030, as an upper boundary, there would need to be an increase of around $18.5 trillion in market value between now and then for Bitcoin to reach $1 million. Thielen figures that the needed amount of capital is actually slightly smaller, at $15 trillion, but that's still an improbably large sum.

For reference, $15 trillion accounts for about a fifth of the entire U.S. stock market, which is worth approximately $75 trillion. And it'd be quite surprising, to say the least, if that much money were to move around the global financial system and into Bitcoin in just a few years.

There's a lot of wiggle room for the price target to still be hit

Money doesn't enter Bitcoin a dollar at a time, and that's where Thielen's skepticism can be contested.

When a buyer picks up some coins from a seller, every existing coin is ever so slightly revalued to account for the settlement price, so its market value moves by a multiple of the cash. Financial analysts call that the money multiplier.

Thielen's math implies a multiplier near 1.2 for Bitcoin today. For reference, NYDIG, a Bitcoin financial services company, suggests that the stock market's money multiplier is near 5 and that gold's is between 2 and 3, and it cites recent estimates for Bitcoin ranging from 15 to 50, while noting that nobody knows the real number. At a midpoint multiplier of 25, making Bitcoin worth $1 million per coin would take only $740 billion of actual inflows.

But that doesn't mean you should bet on that price target coming true. Through December 2025, U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) saw $58 billion in net inflows, or about $30.2 billion yearly. Reaching even $740 billion by 2030 would thus require inflows of more than 5 times that pace to be sustained for the next four years without major interruption, which is unlikely.

Bitcoin can still be a good investment for a long-term hold, whether it reaches $1 million by 2030 or not. Nonetheless, the most outrageous price targets set during roaring bull markets are rarely backed by good due diligence.

Alex Carchidi has positions in Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.