Bitcoin (BTC +0.03%) is favoring the bears right now. Since it hit a peak in October 2025, its price has tanked by 46% (as of March 3). But don't let that distract you from the long-term gains. This dominant digital asset has skyrocketed 16,720% in the past decade.
Where will Bitcoin be 10 years from now in 2036?
Image source: Getty Images.
Bitcoin will make fundamental progress
First, it's important not to think about the price. In other words, investors should consider how Bitcoin will evolve from a fundamental perspective.
One way the crypto will grow is by becoming more accepted from a regulatory perspective. In recent years, this has happened with the establishment of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. And there are key government officials who are supportive of Bitcoin.
Over the next decade, I expect this trend to continue. Maybe the U.S. will start to opportunistically acquire Bitcoin as the country views the crypto as a beneficial fiscal asset. It's also possible that Bitcoin could receive favorable tax treatment that supports its use as a medium of exchange.
Another movement to watch is Bitcoin further entrenching itself in the traditional financial services industry. The launch of the highly successful spot Bitcoin ETFs, like the iShares Bitcoin Trust, in January 2024 is the perfect example of how major firms got involved. Unique credit products are also being introduced, like those created by Strategy. It's safe to say that more companies will find ways to leverage Bitcoin to come up with innovative money-making offerings.
Since the first block was mined in January 2009, the Bitcoin network has never been hacked. This highlights the robustness and anti-fragility of its architecture, with security being the primary focus. This is supported by an ever-increasing hash rate, indicating the amount of computational force that powers Bitcoin.
There are valid concerns about quantum computing (QC) posing a threat. In addition to this technology's progress timeline being completely unknown, Bitcoin has the ability to adapt, like with a new proposal recently put forward to protect against QC risk.
Looking out to 2036, Bitcoin should be stronger from a fundamental perspective. And this lays the foundation for the price to rise.
CRYPTO: BTC
Key Data Points
Predicting Bitcoin's price a decade into the future
I've previously discussed that I believe that Bitcoin's market cap will get to half that of gold in 10 years. The crypto's current valuation of $1.4 trillion would then need to rise about 13-fold to get to $17.7 trillion, which is half the precious metal's market cap of $35.4 trillion.
Gold's only advantage is that it's been around for thousands of years. Plus, it's viewed favorably by central banks as a reserve asset.
Bitcoin, though, is better because it's purely digital, isn't controlled by anyone, has a hard supply cap, is easy to transport, and can be used in transactions. These positive attributes make me believe that Bitcoin will chip away at gold's value over the next 10 years, perhaps approaching a price of $900,000 in 2036.
