Few Wall Street firms cover digital assets, making VanEck unique.
Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research at VanEck, is bullish on Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
Sigel’s thesis is based on the idea that Bitcoin is increasingly accepted and used as a currency.
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Although Bitcoin‘s (CRYPT: BTC) The price has stalled in recent weeks, at 2025. the coin is still appreciating. The world’s largest cryptocurrency is up about 15% year-to-date, outpacing the broader market (as of Oct. 31), and up 55% over the past year. Due to geopolitical issues and concerns about inflation and rising US government debt, more and more investors are treating Bitcoin as a form of digital gold that is growing in its own right.
Despite Bitcoin’s strong performance, many analysts believe there is more room for action. Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research at VanEck, a global investment management company, believes that by 2050 Bitcoin can grow as much as 45,279 percent.
While Bitcoin is gaining acceptance in the mainstream financial world, there still aren’t many Wall Street firms doing traditional research on the digital asset and issuing price targets. This is partly due to the fact that the sector is only about 16 years old. It’s also very difficult to value digital assets because they don’t generate free cash flow and earnings like a traditional publicly traded company would. So to see a longtime Wall Street fund make such a big call is definitely a big deal.
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At the end of July, Sigel and his team issued a major update, claiming that the company’s bull scenario predicted that the price of Bitcoin would fall by 2050. may increase to 52.3 million The analysis also took into account many other factors such as investor demand and global growth to come up with long-term calculations.
One of Sigel’s main arguments for Bitcoin is related to the deteriorating financial situation of several of the world’s current economic leaders, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and Japan. These countries have accumulated huge debts that force their governments to spend heavily on annual interest payments.
Sigel believes that this will harm the world’s leading reserve currencies, causing many consumers and businesses to eventually choose Bitcoin over traditional fiat currencies, which will create demand for “neutral mediums of exchange with immutable ownership rights and predictable monetary policy” like Bitcoin.. According to Sigel, Bitcoin provides important features that will be valued in a currency, such as trustlessness, neutrality, immutable monetary policy and perfect property rights.
Although the Bitcoin network is not considered very efficient from a technical point of view, Sigel and his team believe that Bitcoin can be scaled up with a growing network of Layer 2 solutions that facilitate transactions in Bitcoin, but not on the mainnet and less networked than traditional Layer 2 solutions on other blockchain networks.
In Sigel’s bull case, Bitcoin will take 20% of international trade and 10% of domestic trade by 2050, and 99% of Bitcoin coins will be removed from circulation. The price of Bitcoin will also generate a 50% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), while Bitcoin will only account for 30% of the world’s financial assets. In this scenario, the price of Bitcoin will rise to 52.4 million. USD, which means an increase of 45,279% from the current level.
In VanEck’s base case, Bitcoin accounts for 10% and 5% of international and domestic trade, respectively. Eighty-five percent of coins are being withdrawn from circulation, and Bitcoin is growing at a CAGR of 16% while accounting for just under 1.7% of global assets. According to this scenario, by 2050 the price of cryptocurrencies would be about 2.9 million
The short answer is I don’t know. I’ve learned to never say never in the crypto world, but I’m also skeptical of cryptocurrency price predictions because, as I mentioned above, they’re quite different from traditional stocks.
Sigel and VanEck are certainly legitimate sources and have done some very interesting work in their research that is well worth reading. It’s really hard to know whether Sigel’s prediction can come true and whether consumers and businesses will see Bitcoin as a better form of currency than fiat currencies. For what it’s worth, I think Sigel’s underlying assumptions are much more realistic, such as a 16% CAGR and Bitcoin eventually capturing 1.7% of the world’s financial assets.
At this point, I still see Bitcoin as a good long-term asset for investors to put at least some capital into. Many investors are increasingly looking at the token as a good store of value that offers a unique form of diversification that many assets cannot offer.
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Bram Berkowitz has positions in Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has positions and recommends Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
1 Top Crypto to Buy Before It Goes Up 45,279% According to VanEck’s Matthew Sigel Originally published by The Motley Fool
