J.P. Morgan Sees 10% a Year, Bear Case Near $25K

J.P. Morgan Asset Management projected a 10% annual return for Bitcoin over the next decade in its 2027 Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions, published on Monday, October 19. This is the first time the 31-year-old report has put a number on BTC USD. Michael Saylor read it as Wall Street doing the math. The bank’s own pages read more like a warning label.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s base case projects Bitcoin to outperform U.S. stocks, bonds and gold over the next decade. Wall Street is doing the math. pic.twitter.com/xGnbwYcVjN

— Michael Saylor (@saylor) October 20, 2026

Bitcoin trades at $83,025 today, up 1.99% in 24 hours, as spot Bitcoin ETFs logged a second straight day of inflows and Lookonchain flagged $90.38 million in BTC landing in brand-new wallets. So is 10% a year a bull signal, or a reason to size positions carefully?

DISCOVER: BTC USD Touched $83,000 With Everything Going Its Way, and Still Could Not Hold It

BTC Is at the Top of Its Return Table.: What Does J.P. Morgan Actually Project for Bitcoin?

The J.P. Morgan Bitcoin forecast is a 10% compound return per year for 10 years in its base case, the highest figure in the table. That beats U.S. REITs at 8.2%, U.S. large caps at 7.5%, U.S. aggregate bonds at 5.6%, gold at 5.5% and cash at 3.2%.

But the report also gives a bull case of 16.6% per year and a bear case of-11.2%, all starting from an $83,000 spot price on September 30. Run those forward and you get:

• Base case: about $215,000 per BTC by 2036.
• Bull case: about $386,000.
• Bear case: about $25,000.

That spread comes from 55% expected annual volatility, more than three times gold’s 17.2%. It also explains why the arithmetic average return, 20.9%, sits so far above the 10% that investors actually compound.

The authors are blunt about the rest. They call Bitcoin “a speculative asset and a hedge against monetary easing,” write that it is “premature to create a 10-year forecast for bitcoin,” and keep it out of their main portfolio models because its correlations with other assets keep shifting. Of their three frameworks, the one built on network adoption gives a base case of minus 3.2% a year.

In other words, J.P. Morgan put Bitcoin at the top of the chart and then told clients not to build a portfolio around it yet.

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Who Is Buying BTC USD Right Now?

BlackRock’s clients, and someone working through Wintermute. SoSoValue data shows U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs took in $23.2 million on Tuesday, with BlackRock’s IBIT bringing in $29.9 million, after Monday’s $526.6 million. October is still about $67 million in the red for the group.

Whales continue to accumulate $BTC!

Another 3 newly created wallets received 1,090 $BTC ($90.38M) from Wintermute.https://t.co/TwNMdG7jgZhttps://t.co/GO3INdWCpphttps://t.co/3qqMDA5a7Mhttps://t.co/S25zuSxmzk pic.twitter.com/7rwosaFDxx

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) October 21, 2026

The bigger number came from Bitcoin whales on-chain. Lookonchain spotted three newly created wallets receiving 1,090 BTC, worth $90.38 million, from market maker Wintermute early on Wednesday. Fresh wallets fed by a market maker often point to an over-the-counter (OTC) buyer taking delivery, though the wallets don’t say who that buyer is.

EXPLORE: BTC USD ETF Rebound Was Led Almost Entirely by BlackRock’s IBIT Fund

Whales Are Accumulating But Can BTC USD Hold $83,000 This Time?

BTC USD price has just pushed past the $83,000 mark, yet the true challenge lies in closing the daily candle above that level. Bitcoin hasn’t ended a day above that swing high since October 12, even after wicks to $83,168 on October 18 and $83,249 today.

These are the levels on the daily chart:

• The line to beat: today’s $83,249 high.
• The next target: $87,220, the last major swing high.
• The first floor: $82,563, a swing low just under the price.
• The real floor: $80,394 to $80,765, where a swing low and the 50-day exponential moving average (EMA) meet.

In the bull case, a daily close above $83,249 with ETF inflows holding up opens $87,220. In the base case, BTC USD chops between $80,394 and $83,249 into next week’s Fed meeting. In the bear case, a break of $80,394 puts the 200-day EMA at $76,108 in play.

J.P. Morgan’s base case only needs Bitcoin to compound at 10% from here. This week, it needs a daily close above $83,249 first.

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