 
 
Analysts at asset manager VanEck have outlined a long-term capital market outlook that values Bitcoin (BTC) at a whopping $53 million by 2050.
The stratospheric price prediction represents VanEck’s bull case in the scenario, which maintains a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29% for Bitcoin over the next 25 years, according to a recent blog post titled “Bitcoin Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions,” which was authored by Matthew Sigel, the company’s head of digital assets research, and senior analyst Patrick Bush.
Bitcoin To Gain Traction As Both A Settlement Asset And A Reserve Holding
Sigel and Bush describe hyper-Bitcoinization as the period when the premier cryptocurrency becomes a settlement currency for international and domestic trade and makes its way into more central bank reserves.
“In a ‘hyper-Bitcoinization’ scenario where Bitcoin captures 20% of international trade and 10% of domestic GDP, the implied value per coin could reach $53.4 million,” the analysis reads.
“This scenario requires Bitcoin to achieve parity with or surpass gold as a primary global reserve asset,” they continued, “constituting nearly 30% of world financial assets.
 
Notably, that’s VanEck’s bullish case valuation for Bitcoin. But even the firm’s base case predicts significant price appreciation ahead for BTC: It estimates an annualized return of around 15%, resulting in a price of $2.9 million per coin by 2050.
In this scenario, VanEck forecasts that BTC will account for 5-10% of global trade settlement volume. It’s worth noting that Bitcoin is already being used in international trade, particularly in economically sanctioned nations like Venezuela and Russia, but has seen little traction in G7 nations. Additionally, the model suggests that central banks will likely allocate up to 2.5% of their balance sheets to Bitcoin, representing diversification away from sovereign fiat currencies.
Global liquidity expansion and monetary debasement would be the key drivers of BTC’s price growth, Sigel and Bush noted in the report: “Bitcoin is not a tactical trade in this framework; it functions as a long-duration hedge against adverse monetary regime outcomes.”
Even in its bear-case scenario, VanEck still assumes a 2% CAGR to $130,000 — around 3% above its current lifetime high peak of $126,080 registered in October 2025.
As of press time, Bitcoin is trading at $90,813, up roughly 0.2% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data.