Predictions of seven-figure bitcoin prices tend to provoke eye-rolling. To sceptics, they belong in the same category as lottery tickets and late-cycle exuberance. To Ali Sina Mohaghegh, they are neither forecasts nor provocations, but stress tests for how investors think about value, scarcity and adoption.
Mohaghegh is marketing lead and co-owner of Bitdenex, a Dutch-regulated crypto exchange, and an adviser to several international trading platforms. In a recent podcast appearance, he outlined a scenario in which bitcoin could exceed $1m by the mid-2030s. The argument, he insists, is not about bravado.
“If you look at bitcoin purely as a speculative asset, one million sounds absurd,” he says. “But if you approach it as a potential store of value, it becomes a calculation rather than a feeling.”
From narrative to arithmetic
At the core of Mohaghegh’s reasoning is a shift he sees already under way: bitcoin moving, slowly and unevenly, from the fringes of speculation towards a recognised role in diversified portfolios. Not universally, and rarely at large weightings, but increasingly alongside equities, property and bonds.
The comparison he returns to is gold. With an estimated market capitalisation of roughly $25tn, gold has long functioned as a reference point for debates about bitcoin’s upper bounds. If bitcoin were ever to capture a meaningful share of that role as a digital alternative, the implications for price would be substantial.
The arithmetic is intentionally rough. Bitcoin’s market capitalisation today sits a little above $2tn. Closing the gap with gold would imply a multiple expansion of around ten to twelve times, which translates to a price comfortably above $1m per coin. The exercise is not a target, Mohaghegh stresses, but a way to anchor discussion.
“This is not about precision,” he says. “It’s about understanding orders of magnitude. Gold itself will not stand still either.”
Institutions, access and the lowering of friction
What has changed in recent years, in his view, is not bitcoin’s underlying design but the ecosystem around it. Large financial institutions may remain divided in their assessments, but they are no longer ignoring the asset altogether.
The introduction of bitcoin exchange-traded funds has played a role in that shift, lowering operational barriers and allowing exposure through familiar structures. As access becomes less complex, the pool of potential capital widens, even if allocations remain cautious.
Regulation, too, matters. Clearer rules, particularly in Europe and the US, reduce the career risk for institutions considering small but strategic positions. “When the environment becomes less hostile and more defined,” Mohaghegh argues, “long-term participation becomes easier to justify.”
Macro factors reinforce the case. Rising sovereign debt levels and persistent questions around fiat currency stability form part of the backdrop against which alternative stores of value are assessed. None of this guarantees outcomes, but it shapes the range of plausible scenarios.
Digital scarcity versus physical weight
Mohaghegh’s conviction that bitcoin could rival gold rests less on ideology than on logistics. Gold’s physicality, long a source of trust, is also a constraint. Storage, transport and verification all carry costs.
Bitcoin, by contrast, is natively digital. Value can be transferred globally with relative ease, without reliance on physical infrastructure. For a generation accustomed to dematerialised assets, that distinction matters.
“It’s not that bitcoin replaces gold overnight,” he says. “But in practical terms, digital scarcity has advantages that become more visible over time.”
Politics and persistence
The regulatory outlook in the US remains a point of uncertainty, but Mohaghegh is less concerned about short-term political cycles than many market participants. He points to growing bipartisan support for certain crypto-related legislation as evidence that policy direction may be more durable than election headlines suggest.
That durability, if it holds, would reduce one of the major tail risks often cited by institutional investors: sudden regulatory reversal.
A scenario, not a promise
More aggressive projections exist. Some bullish models suggest prices well beyond $1m, assuming bitcoin and gold together absorb a larger share of global store-of-value demand. Mohaghegh treats such numbers with caution.
“This is not a promise,” he says. “It’s a framework. The number itself matters less than understanding the assumptions underneath it.”
For investors, that distinction may be the most useful takeaway. Whether bitcoin ever reaches seven figures is unknowable. What is clearer is that the debate is gradually moving away from whether the asset should exist at all, and towards where, if anywhere, it fits in a changing financial architecture.