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Bitcoin has been regarded as the new digital gold for some time, yet Matthew Sigel, the Head of Digital Assets Research at VanEck, believes it could be much more. Sigel states that Bitcoin’s price could reach a remarkable $644,000 simply by capturing half of the market capitalization of gold at current prices.
Such a bold Bitcoin price prediction emerges at a time when a growing number of global investors see BTC as a valid hedge against inflation and economic uncertainty. The growing acceptance of BTC by many large institutions, together with the recent increase in retail demand for BTC, is causing a slow “convergence of long-term value” to occur between Bitcoin and gold, according to Sigel.
For several years, analysts and observers have debated whether Bitcoin can truly compete with gold for the position of store of value. However, the recent demand for institutional Bitcoin adoption, regulations from several countries that now indicate Bitcoin is a legitimate investment, and the continued success of ETFs are rapidly evolving that debate. Sigel’s pricing indicates a new way to think about how high the price of BTC could go as demand continues to rise.
💥 $BTC could reach $644K, says Matthew Sigel, VanEck’s Head of Digital Assets Research and a veteran Wall Street strategist.
Matthew Sigel notes that Bitcoin capturing half of gold’s market cap at today’s prices is possible as adoption is growing among institutional and retail… pic.twitter.com/bIQ485fUdZ
— CryptosRus (@CryptosR_Us) October 8, 2025
Institutional Interest Is Reshaping Bitcoin’s Future
A fundamental driver behind Sigel’s bullish Bitcoin valuation estimate is the substantial change in institutional behavior toward digital asset investing. Large organizations, such as BlackRock, Fidelity, and VanEck itself, have created or supported Bitcoin-related investment products. These developments are slowly aligning traditional finance with crypto markets.
Additionally, the institutional adoption of Bitcoin has opened up previous market dynamics that will evolve. Rather than solely speculative trading, there is now a solid base of long-term holders who consider Bitcoin an asset to hold with an investment thesis for their portfolios. This steady pool of demand will attenuate volatility and create more substantive price support zones. As Sigel points out, this structural change may enable Bitcoin’s value to shift upwards to more closely align with gold over time.
Comparing Bitcoin and Gold
The comparison of Bitcoin and gold has been a frequent subject of discussion since the dawn of the cryptocurrency several years ago. For thousands of years, humanity has utilized gold as a preferred store of value as its market cap exceeds $14 trillion. As of recent months, market cap currently fluctuates around $1.3 trillion.
Sigel’s Bitcoin price forecasts assume that should Bitcoin attain half of gold’s current valuation, that would lead to a price per BTC of nearly $644,000. Again, this is not a forecast driven by conjecture, but a forecast driven by the increasing overlap of investors who own gold and the new generation of investors who own digital assets.
Retail Investors Join the Institutional Wave
The current institutional adoption of bitcoin is an important consideration, however, it is also great to see some momentum from retail investors. The democratization of crypto with easy exchanges, payment integrations, and mobile wallets have allowed for millions of new investors to enter the market.
Sigel states, “The dual adoption curve of institutional and retail demand are what make the price prediction of $644k within the realm of possibility.” Every cycle we watch the class of investors and the liquidity develop and the volatility is starting to trend downwards towards more established market structures and eventually more stable market structures.
Final Thoughts
Matthew Sigel’s $644,000 price prediction for Bitcoin demonstrates the level of maturation the digital asset space has gone through since the early Bitcoin days. We are seeing an increasing level of institutional adoption, and the analogies to aspects of gold have never seemed more relevant. We could also see a significant change in the coming years in the way investors evaluate value and scarcity.