[DigitalToday reporter Hyunwoo Choo (추현우)] Major investment firm ARK Invest forecast that bitcoin’s market capitalisation could reach $16 trillion in 2030. CoinDesk, a blockchain media outlet, reported on Thursday that expanding institutional adoption and inclusion in global investment portfolios were cited as key drivers.

ARK Invest said in its annual “Big Ideas” report that bitcoin’s market capitalisation, currently about $1.5 trillion, could increase more than tenfold over the next four years. The compound annual growth rate is about 63 percent. Assuming all 21 million bitcoins are in circulation by 2030, the price per coin would exceed $730,000. It said, however, that in reality not all of them are likely to be in circulation even then.

ARK Invest assessed that bitcoin is maturing into a leading asset in a new institutional asset class. It said that as holdings by exchange-traded funds, corporate treasury assets and countries increase, perceptions of bitcoin are shifting from a speculative asset to digital gold, a macroeconomic hedge and a reserve asset.

Bitcoin held by U.S. ETFs and listed companies was calculated at about 12 percent of total supply as of the end of last year. That is up from about 9 percent a year earlier.

It said the impact could be large even if the allocation by institutional money is small. Estimating the global portfolio excluding gold at about $200 trillion, it said that allocating just 2.5 percent of that to bitcoin could add about $5 trillion to its total value.

It also cited the effect of substituting for the gold market. ARK Invest expected bitcoin could absorb about 40 percent of the gold market’s value, which it said is currently slightly above $24 trillion. It calculated that the digital-gold narrative alone could add about $10 trillion in potential upside to bitcoin’s value.

Demand for a neutral reserve asset was also cited as a factor for gains. It estimated that even a 0.5 percent penetration of a $68 trillion monetary base could increase value by about $339 billion. It also said expanded allocations by national and corporate treasury assets could add demand worth hundreds of billions of dollars each.

ARK Invest forecast that bitcoin’s bullish trend would also drive growth in the overall digital asset market. It said overall digital asset market capitalisation could reach about $28 trillion in 2030. Overall digital asset market capitalisation is currently about $2.7 trillion.