Is Bitcoin Really on Its Way to $500K? Insights from Bitwise's CIO

Think you're too late to Bitcoin? You’ve still got time, according to ETF manager Bitwise’s chief investment officer, who predicts sizable gains still to come.

Of course, he would say that. But crypto asset manager boss Matt Hougan has laid out some interesting reasons why he thinks the average investor can still snap up “digital gold”—and that being late to Bitcoin would be when or if it hits the $500,000 mark.

Bitcoin’s price soared amid Donald Trump’s Presidential election victory last week, and has continued to rocket upwards, constantly breaking new all-time highs. It shot up to a new peak of nearly $93,500 earlier Wednesday, though has cooled since.

Hougan argued in a Tuesday blog post that Bitcoin—and assets like gold—will continue to be attractive to investors as fiat currency is debased.

“Bitcoin is still developing, even after this latest rally,” he wrote, arguing that it still makes the news when a major institution or pension fund invests in the asset.

“Bitcoin will increasingly be accepted as a store of value, standing shoulder to shoulder with gold,” he added, noting that when the asset starts to eat gold’s market share, it will then be “mature” in his view.

Bitcoin was created as a peer-to-peer payments network so that anyone with an internet connection could send or receive money without a centralized player or intermediary in the middle.

But as the years have gone by, it has become an asset primarily defined as being a store of value, giving investors eye-watering returns. Other cryptocurrencies can be traded faster and with lower fees, but over a lengthy time span, Bitcoin just gains.

It is for this reason that the “orange coin” has long been touted as an inflation hedge by the crypto community. Now, top asset managers and traditional finance bigwigs claim the cryptocurrency is a good bet during times of uncertainty, and when governments are debasing their currencies.

But there's always risk involved with crypto investment. Hougan did warn would-be investors that his projections might not pan out despite the bullish vibe in the air right now.

“There is no guarantee that Bitcoin will ever be worth $500,000 per coin,” he wrote. “We don’t even know if it will eclipse $100,000.”