Bitcoin’s quiet rally has captured the attention of Wall Street and beyond, but some voices from OG Bitcoiners like American HODL are predicting that what we’ve witnessed so far is just the calm before an explosive storm.
The Bitcoin treasury bubble thesis is that, within just a few years, a tidal wave of corporate, institutional, and possibly sovereign capital totaling as much as $11 trillion could flood into Bitcoin. Some projections suggest that true mania may not hit until 2026 or beyond, potentially sending the price as high as $1 million per coin.
This month, Bitcoin marked a new all-time high above $120,000, pushing its market cap to $2.4 trillion, trailing only behind Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, and gold.
Yet, this move has come with little public awareness or euphoria. The price has stair-stepped higher in a quiet fashion, led not by retail speculation but by deliberate, low-profile corporate and institutional buying. As Swan pointed out:
“This is the least euphoric bull market we’ve ever seen… and that’s bullish.”
“I just don’t know if it’s going to be a crisis in six months or six years, and I’m hoping that we change both the trajectory of the debt and the ability of market makers to make markets. Unfortunately, it may be that we need that to wake us up.”
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink echoed Dimon’s concerns, saying:
“If the U.S. doesn’t get its debt under control, if deficits keep ballooning, America risks losing that position to digital assets like Bitcoin.”
“Bitcoin ran from $42K → $123K during the tightest monetary policy in modern history.
What happens when liquidity floods back in?”
Remember the lockdown era? When rate cuts during the COVID-19 pandemic spurred rally after rally across crypto markets, culminating in parabolic gains for Bitcoin? With another cycle of rate slashing potentially on the horizon, the setup looks eerily similar.
According to Swan, big buyers are still mostly on the sidelines, finalizing mergers and legal structures. Names like Nakamoto, Twenty One Capital, and Strive Asset Management have yet to fully deploy capital, but are preparing multi-billion-dollar mandates.
As coins are absorbed by corporate treasuries through algorithmic “drip-buying,” available supply dries up without dramatic price spikes.
When enough boardrooms and sovereigns hit “bid” at the same time, price action could turn “reflexive” where buying by one entity triggers more entities to chase Bitcoin, echoing the late-’90s scramble for “internet stories.”
Just like every dot-com needed an “internet story” to survive in 1999, every major firm may soon feel pressure to have a “Bitcoin strategy.” This “narrative contagion” can push prices to unimaginable heights (well beyond what fundamentals alone would suggest).
American HODL, among others, sees a realistic path:
“I think the treasury company bubble can get dot-com level large. We could see a 3–4 year run that takes Bitcoin well beyond a million dollars.”
So is it plausible that we’re seeing the opening moves of a bubble that could rival the dot-com era? The pieces are falling into place. Mania may yet be a year or two away, but if history rhymes, the blow-off top could take Bitcoin to levels few believed possible just a few years ago.
