Bitcoin could follow gold into a vastly larger market as institutional ownership of the asset expands, according to Matt Hougan, chief investment officer of Bitwise Asset Management. In an Oct. 9 post on X, Hougan reaffirmed his side-by-side comparison of the gold and bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) launches while sharing a video clip from media outlet Simply Bitcoin in which he laid out the case.

Gold's Expansion Offers a $30 Trillion Benchmark

Hougan contrasted gold's estimated market capitalization of $2 trillion to $2.5 trillion when the first U.S. gold ETF launched in 2004 with the metal's subsequent growth to roughly $30 trillion. He placed bitcoin's market value at approximately $2 trillion when its own ETFs debuted in 2024, suggesting the asset could trace a similar growth trajectory. The parallel rests on similar starting points — both assets carried market values of roughly $2 trillion when their respective ETFs arrived — and gold's climb to its current scale unfolded over the roughly two decades that followed its fund's launch.

"I think it could easily do what gold did, which is run up to $30 trillion, and that arrives at a pretty nice price target," the Bitwise investment chief said in the clip.

Sustained ETF Buying Could Tighten Supply

The comparison builds on Hougan's argument that sustained ETF buying could progressively tighten bitcoin's available supply. Writing in January, he noted that sales from existing holders initially absorb incoming demand, but that continued purchasing could eventually exhaust the pool of willing sellers. The supply-side framing is also rooted in bitcoin's protocol design, which caps the asset's total supply at 21 million coins. Bitcoin was changing hands at $82,766 at the time of writing.

Brokerage Access Underpins the Long-Term Case

U.S. investors gained a new route to direct bitcoin price exposure after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved spot bitcoin investment products on Jan. 10, 2024. The authorization allowed shares of products holding the underlying coins to trade on stock exchanges.

The fund structure lets investors obtain bitcoin exposure through ordinary brokerage accounts without handling cryptocurrency wallets or private keys, with shareholders holding shares that track the underlying asset.

Hougan's earlier scenario for bitcoin reaching $1 million per coin rested on a separate calculation. In a March 10 memo, he envisioned the combined gold-bitcoin store-of-value market expanding to approximately $121 trillion within 10 years if historical growth rates persisted, with bitcoin requiring about 17% of that expanding pool to support the price.

Bitwise has also pointed to bitcoin's strengthening relationship with gold. Firm data through Aug. 31 showed the rolling 90-day correlation between the two assets above 0.5 — its highest level since 2020 — indicating a tendency for their price changes to move in the same direction.

Investor Behavior Could Derail the Decade-Long Outlook

Hougan cautioned that substantial long-term gains would likely arrive through repeated rallies and declines, making investor responses central to his thesis. In the video clip, he identified investors' ability to endure both rising and falling markets as his biggest concern, ranking it ahead of potential threats to bitcoin's operating rules or its security from quantum computers.

Excessive leverage and exhaustion from market swings have already hurt participants, he observed. Leverage amplifies losses as well as gains and can force positions to close during downturns before any subsequent recovery.

That emphasis on patience aligns with the findings of Bitwise's survey of 15 large institutions. Published in September, the interviews found that none of the respondents named price as a reason to exit their crypto positions, though they classified bitcoin in differing ways — including as a store of value and as a technology investment.

Hougan also suggested keeping some capital invested with a 10-year horizon to see how the thesis develops, characterizing the potential gains as substantial and life-changing. For readers tracking that horizon, published ETF flow data, updated correlation readings, and institutional survey research offer observable checkpoints tied to the same sources cited throughout the argument.