Bitcoin went on a wild ride in 2025 before ending the year slightly lower. Wealth managers believe the bull market for the premier digital currency will resume in the coming year thanks to institutional adoption, Trumpian support and a declining dollar.
Bitcoin began 2025 around $95,000 and surged to a new all-time high of over $126,000 in early October. The price crashed in November and December primarily due to U.S.-China trade tensions and profit-taking, finishing the year just under $89,000 with a modest loss of 6.4%. Year-to-date 2026 Bitcoin is up almost 5% to $91,630.
Tony Pecore, director of digital asset management for Franklin Templeton, for one, expects the institutional adoption of Bitcoin to continue through the rest of 2026. He believes the powerful Bitcoin ETF inflows from last year will continue as more wealth and asset management firms onboard the ETFs.
“With the demand for Bitcoin we expect in 2026, we believe it is very reasonable to expect Bitcoin to have a very positive year and potentially all-time highs,” Pecore said.
The biggest risk factor to Bitcoin’s ascent is policy and regulatory in Pecore’s opinion.
“While this has been very positive since Trump was elected President, if any headwinds come from regulators or policy, it could slow down the momentum around institutional adoption. The mid-term elections could be a late-year headwind that does just that, though it remains uncertain how,” Pecore said.
Elsewhere, Randol Curtis, chief investment officer at Thryve Wealth Management, believes Bitcoin will continue to appreciate strongly over the next few years owing to the ever-expanding US money supply. His base case factors in the growth rate of M2 money supply plus a premium for worldwide adoption and network effect.
“Current M2 supply growth in the US is about 4.3%. We add a 20% premium to that for adoption rate and arrive at an expected increase of 20% to 25% for 2026. Uncertainty around short-term Bitcoin estimates are huge, but we believe that long-term market forces are very strong and that Bitcoin could reach $1 million within 10 years,” Curtis said.
Meanwhile, James Vermillion, founder of Vermillion Private Wealth, expects the forces that make Bitcoin compelling to remain firmly in place and likely intensify. Expanding national debt, a structurally weaker dollar, and the growing reality of fiscal dominance all tilt the landscape in favor of scarce, non-sovereign assets, according to Vermillion.
“Bitcoin’s appeal, in my view, is less about near-term price action and more about its role as an alternative in an environment where long-term discipline is increasingly absent,” Vermillion said.
That said, Vermillion says a genuine and sustained reversal in fiscal and monetary policy would force him to rethink that assessment.
“That would mean credible deficit reduction, restored monetary restraint, and a political willingness to accept short-term pain in exchange for long-term stability. I see that combination as highly improbable given current incentives,” Vermillion said.
When it comes to compelling crypto investments outside of Bitcoin, Franklin Templeton’s Pecore says tokenization of real-world assets will be a catalyst for wallet adoption and broader on-chain activity, which results in near-instant settlement, real-time collateral control, and emerging liquidity layers. He adds that Stablecoins will likely gain traction with banks and retailers as the Genius Act takes effect in 2026.
“For an investment, we like the blockchains that enable this tokenization, stablecoin activity, and prediction markets as well. The least attractive is related to tokenization platforms that have either a ‘digital twin’ or have limited functionality that isn't utilizing the benefits of blockchain and being a tokenized asset,” Pecore said.
For investors who want broader crypto exposure in an ETF format, a diversified approach can be a practical way to participate in these themes without relying on a single asset. Pecore recommends the Franklin Crypto Index ETF (Ticker: EZPZ), a basket-style ETF that provides access to a broader set of cryptocurrencies in one vehicle, which can help investors avoid concentrating their view in any single crypto asset.
Thryve’s Curtis primarily focuses on Bitcoin as the main "hard money" cryptocurrency because of its supply cap of 21 million coins and its “truly decentralized trustless network architecture.” In his view, USD and US Treasury stablecoin adoption looks to grow rapidly internationally, but for US investors, these cryptocurrencies offer little benefit so he does not focus on them.
“We are watching Ethereum, Solana and XRP but have not yet developed a viable long-term investment thesis around them for our wealth management clients,” Curtis said.
Finally, Vermillion won’t take positions in, or make recommendations on, cryptocurrencies outside of Bitcoin. That’s not because innovation elsewhere is absent. It’s because Bitcoin is the only digital asset that has convincingly separated itself as a monetary network rather than a technology or venture-style project.
“Its decentralization, security, and lack of reliance on ongoing governance or narrative maintenance give it a fundamentally different risk profile in my view,” Vermillion said.
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