Here's when bitcoin may hit $500,000

With the returning rally in the price of bitcoin ( BTC-USD ), comes the return of big calls on bitcoin by the Wall Street bulls.

Bernstein analyst Gautum Chhugani thinks bitcoin will notch several important price milestones over the next few years.

"In our base case, we expect bitcoin to reach new all-time high of $150K by mid-2027 and $300K by 2029 end. However, given the macro regime shift, if institutional capital actively chases bitcoin, we could see an accelerated timeline, with bitcoin potentially peaking at $500K in 2029 and rapid recovery to new all-time highs of ~$200K by mid-2027. We maintain our bitcoin price forecast of ~$1 M million by 2033 end across the base and bull case," Chhugani said in a note on Wednesday.

Bitcoin is having a price gusher to close out August.

The price of bitcoin broke through $80,000 early Tuesday for the first time in 15 weeks. In the last 10 days, bitcoin is up 25%.

It's currently trading at about $80,000 today.

The latest rally has been fueled mostly by moves in the bond market.

The US Treasury surprised financial markets last week by announcing it will double the maximum size of its long-term bond buyback operations from $2 billion to $4 billion per session. This intervention directly targets the 10-year, 20-year, and 30-year Treasury sectors after benchmark yields spiked to 20-year highs due to nagging inflation and war-driven energy price pressures.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he has a "big toolkit" to continue addressing the rise in bond yields.

By stepping into the secondary market to purchase debt, the Treasury aims to inject liquidity, stabilize falling bond prices, and pull down soaring borrowing costs for consumers and businesses.

Bessent's promise to unleash his big toolkit appears to have only emboldened the bitcoin bulls into expecting more liquidity, which they have tended to reward with higher digital asset prices.

Chhugani believes the bond-buying scheme sheds light on what could be a powerful driver of bitcoin prices over time.

"It appears that the 40-year era of declining interest rates has come to an end, exposing governments to mounting debt-servicing costs as sovereign debt levels reach unprecedented highs. Rising yields create a self-reinforcing cycle of higher interest expenses, larger fiscal deficits, and increased borrowing needs, making debt sustainability a growing policy challenge. While governments are already using measures to manage bond markets and contain yield pressures, these interventions only address symptoms rather than the underlying debt burden. Faced with the choice between fiscal stress and currency debasement, we believe the policymakers will ultimately favor the latter, as it is politically less disruptive (e.g recent struggle with the DOGE efforts). Hence, investors will potentially benefit from owning scarce assets such as Bitcoin that cannot be easily created/ diluted," Chhugani said.