Coinbase Global chief executive Brian Armstrong has lowered his Bitcoin price target for the end of the decade to between $300,000 and $400,000, down from the $1 million forecast he offered a year ago. The revision, delivered on Fox Business Network, comes after Bitcoin fell 36 percent from its October 2025 all-time high of $126,000 and signals a broader recalibration among institutional advocates who once argued for a seven-figure valuation by 2030.
The math behind the new target
Reaching $300,000 from current levels would require a compound annual growth rate of 31.6 percent through 2030, while $400,000 implies 41.4 percent. Armstrong noted that Bitcoin posted a 33.6 percent CAGR from August 2017 through July 2026, a period that included a 73 percent drawdown in 2018 and a 64 percent decline in 2022. The historical precedent is real, but it also means the asset must repeat a trajectory that already contained two bear markets deeper than 60 percent.
The catalyst argument
Armstrong identified the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act as the legislative spark that could lift the entire crypto complex, with Bitcoin as the primary beneficiary. The bill has not yet passed, and no timeline for enactment was provided. Without it, the forecast rests on momentum alone, Bitcoin rose 25 percent in August, which the same historical record shows can reverse sharply.
The missing million
Twelve months ago, Armstrong and Ark Invest chief executive Cathie Wood both pointed to $1 million by 2030. That target has vanished from public commentary without a formal explanation. The shift from a tenfold increase to a threefold or fourfold increase is not a minor adjustment; it is an acknowledgment that the doubling-every-year narrative has broken. The Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor team, for its part, omitted Bitcoin from its current list of ten recommended holdings.
What to watch
The next inflection point is whether Bitcoin can reclaim the $100,000 level by year-end, a threshold Armstrong said would restore retail and institutional attention. Absent legislative clarity, the path to $300,000 depends on a repeat of past volatility cycles, each crash followed by a higher high. That pattern has held so far, but it has never been tested at this scale with this much institutional exposure.