What to know:

ARK Invest raised its decade-end bitcoin (BTC) price target to as high as $2.4 million apiece after revising its assumptions on active supply, which excludes lost or long-held coins. The largest cryptocurrency by market value was recently trading around $94,000.

The bull-projection figure, 60% more than its January 2024 estimate, reflects a 72% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from last December through the end of 2030. The base case estimates a BTC price of $1.2 million — a 53% CAGR — while the bear case projects $500,000, equating to a 32% CAGR.

David Puell, an analyst at the Cathie Wood-led investment company, used a model based on total addressable market and projected market penetration across several sectors. These include institutional investment, bitcoin’s role as "digital gold," its use as a haven in emerging markets, adoption for nation-state and corporate treasury holdings and on-chain financial services built on the bitcoin network.

In November last year, Puell targeted $104,000-$124,000 by year-end. Bitcoin ended December at $93,440 en route to hitting a record high of $109,000 in January before slumping to lows around $74,500 earlier this month.

The rally since then is partly driven by declining exchange balances, which indicate that more BTC is being withdrawn into private wallets, a sign of long-term holding behavior. According to Glassnode data, exchange-held BTC has fallen from approximately 3 million in November 2024 to 2.6 million, reinforcing the growing bullish sentiment around the cryptocurrency.