Bitcoin has secured a spot in one of Wall Street's most closely watched long-term return forecasts—and it landed at the top of the table, above stocks and gold.

In its 2027 Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions, released Monday, J.P. Morgan Asset Management projected a 10% compound annual return for Bitcoin over the next 10 to 15 years. It is the first time the annual study, now in its 31st edition, has included the cryptocurrency. Earlier editions had ranked only traditional asset classes. The report, a fixture of institutional planning since the 1990s, lays out the bank's return, volatility, and correlation projections across major asset classes for long-horizon investors. Because such assumptions feed institutional allocation planning, the debut gives professional investors a formal reference point for an asset that previously sat outside the table entirely.

The projection tops the firm's estimates for U.S. large-cap stocks at 7.5%, gold at 5.5%, and a classic 60/40 stock-bond portfolio—a longstanding benchmark for balanced investors—at 7%.

The catch is volatility. The report pegs Bitcoin's annualized volatility at 55%, compared with roughly 17% for gold. That gap explains why Bitcoin's arithmetic average return—the simple average of yearly gains—comes in at 20.9%, more than double the compound figure investors would actually keep after large price swings. Volatility matters because steep drawdowns erode gains that a simple yearly average would otherwise capture.

Despite the headline projection, the firm stopped short of adding Bitcoin to its main covariance matrices—the models that describe how assets move in relation to one another and form the mathematical backbone of portfolio construction. "For the first time, we put a range on bitcoin returns, though we do not yet include bitcoin in our main covariance matrices," the report says. Instead, JPMorgan built a separate, smaller matrix comparing Bitcoin against a subset of assets, citing the cryptocurrency's volatility and unstable correlations as obstacles to widespread portfolio inclusion. That "not yet" leaves full inclusion as the remaining threshold for Bitcoin to be sized and weighted alongside traditional assets in standard portfolio models—making the matrices a detail to watch in future editions of the study.

JPMorgan also pushed back on one of the asset's most popular bull cases, calling the idea that currency debasement will spark a rush into crypto "wide of the mark."

The publication quickly drew a response from the crypto industry. Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan welcomed the forecast, if not every input. "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight at you, then they add you to their Long-Term Capital Markets Assumptions paper and predict you'll be the best-performing asset of the next decade," he wrote on X.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight at you, then they add you to their Long-Term Capital Markets Assumptions paper and predict you'll be the best-performing asset of the next decade. pic.twitter.com/TuOuH51l3c

— Matt Hougan (@Matt_Hougan) October 20, 2026

Hougan argued that JPMorgan's 55% volatility assumption is too high, which in turn makes its return forecast too conservative. Bitwise, which manages crypto index funds and ETFs, has a stake in that view.

The forecast comes as JPMorgan deepens its own blockchain commitments. The bank is bringing JPM Coin, a token representing dollar deposits, to Ethereum, and has joined BlackRock, Goldman Sachs and the DTCC in tokenized stock efforts. The moves place the largest U.S. bank by assets among the traditional finance firms building on public blockchains.

The timing is notable. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs drew $526.7 million in net inflows on Monday, their best day since Sept. 22, with BlackRock's IBIT taking in $665.2 million. That trimmed October's net outflows to about $88 million. Spot Bitcoin ETFs have become a key gauge of institutional demand since their launch in January 2024.

Bitcoin hovered around $82,000, while the 10-year Treasury yield held above 5%—a competing return with far less volatility. JPMorgan's own global bond forecasts are at their highest levels in two decades.