VanEck’s Matthew Sigel has become the latest high-profile voice to put a $1 million Bitcoin price on the table, adding another bold target to a cryptocurrency that is already being transformed by ETF demand. The timing of the call is important. US spot Bitcoin ETFs recently posted their strongest monthly inflows of 2026, and the category has followed that with positive weekly stretches in May.
Matthew Sigel Says Bitcoin Can Reach $1 Million
VanEck Head of Digital Assets Research Matthew Sigel has said Bitcoin could reach $1 million within five years, placing one of the market’s most bullish long-term targets inside a shorter window than many previous institutional forecasts. At the time of writing, BTC is trading around $80,700, which makes the prediction a projection of a 1,140% increase in the next five years.
Sigel made the projection in a CNBC appearance, where he tied the outlook to demographic demand and the tendency of BTC adopters to stay with the asset once they enter the market. Sigel compared BTC’s adoption curve to the video game industry, where a product once associated mainly with younger users eventually became part of mainstream culture. Bitcoin could follow a similar path as younger investors allocate capital and carry that preference into later stages of wealth creation.
The VanEck executive also pointed to central bank interest as a major structural development. He described central bank reserve buying as part of a much larger trend, although he warned that the path could still be volatile. “People don’t quit; they also don’t quit bitcoin. We have the first central bank buying BTC for its reserves, so this is a mega trend, but it will be very volatile along the way,” he said.
Million-Dollar Projections For BTC Collide
BTC has been subjected to multiple million-dollar price predictions, especially now that the industry has seen how much an effect Spot Bitcoin ETFs can have on the cryptocurrency. US-listed Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $1.97 billion in net inflows in April, making it their strongest monthly total of 2026. The figure also surpassed March’s $1.37 billion and came as BTC gained 12% in April. At the time of writing, Spot Bitcoin ETFs currently have $1.25 billion in net inflows for May.
VanEck’s own long-term research gives that claim a broader foundation. In its 2026 Bitcoin capital market assumptions, the firm projected a base-case valuation of $2.9 million per coin by 2050 and a bull case of $53.4 million, built around BTC adoption as a settlement currency for 5% to 10% of global trade and as a reserve asset representing 2.5% of central bank balance sheets.
The same report modeled a 15% base-case compound annual growth rate and described BTC as a non-sovereign reserve asset whose long-term value depends on adoption and balance-sheet demand. Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan has also laid out a path for Bitcoin to reach that level, contingent on the cryptocurrency capturing at least 17% of a projected $121 trillion global store-of-value market.
Jan3 CEO Samson Mow has also repeatedly predicted that the BTC price can easily break above the $1 million mark in the coming years.
Featured image created with Dall.E, chart from Tradingview.com
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