Bitcoin’s quantum problem is still years away, but Bernstein says 1.7 million BTC sitting in early address types could be among the most exposed if the technology ever gets there. Related Reading: XRP Faces No Immediate Quantum Threat As Only 0.03% Supply Seen At Risk: Analyst That includes an estimated 1.1 million BTC tied to Satoshi Nakamoto, which would matter only if quantum machines become strong enough to break today’s encryption. Legacy Wallets In Focus Bernstein’s view is not that Bitcoin faces a near-term collapse. The firm’s analysts describe the issue as a “manageable upgrade cycle,” not an “existential risk,” and say the danger is concentrated in older wallets and addresses that reuse public keys. Newer wallet practices, including avoiding address reuse, lower exposure. The report also draws a line between wallet risk and mining risk. Bitcoin’s SHA-256 mining process is not seen as meaningfully vulnerable to quantum attacks, even if future machines become powerful enough to threaten some wallet signatures. Bernstein said the most exposed address types include pay-to-public-key, pay-to-multisig and pay-to-Taproot formats. ???? CRYPTO: BERNSTEIN RESEARCH SAYS BITCOIN HAS 3-5 YEARS TO PREPARE FOR QUANTUM COMPUTING THREAT Bernstein Research, the Societe Generale-owned brokerage, said quantum computing poses a credible but manageable threat to Bitcoin, estimating the industry has a three to five year… pic.twitter.com/6QFMObpXjn — BSCN (@BSCNews) April 8, 2026 A Longer Timeline Than Panic The firm pointed to recent research from Google as one reason the threat is being taken more seriously now. That work reduced the resources thought necessary to break modern encryption, but Bernstein still said building a machine capable of compromising Bitcoin remains years away because of major technical barriers and high costs. Its estimate gives the crypto industry about three to five years to prepare for post-quantum security upgrades. That timeline leaves room for the Bitcoin developer community to act through the normal upgrade process. Bernstein said open-source contributors and core developers would likely handle any move toward quantum-resistant standards, with changes proposed and adopted through consensus rather than by force. The report also leans on a broader industry view. Quantum experts generally give a 10-year timeline for cryptographically relevant quantum computers, or machines able to break today’s encryption, according to Bernstein’s chart. That gap is part of why the firm argues the issue is real but not urgent enough to trigger panic. Related Reading: South Korea Imposes 5-Minute Audit Rule On Crypto Platforms What Bitcoin Faces First For now, the pressure sits on old holdings, not the network as a whole. Bernstein said the risk is uneven, with older legacy wallets facing more exposure because public keys are already visible on-chain. By contrast, modern wallet use and better key practices reduce the chance of attack. The rough number Bernstein cited — about 1.7 million BTC in early P2PK addresses — shows why the topic keeps returning. Those coins would not be the first target of any quantum attack, but they are the clearest example of what could be at stake if hardware advances faster than the network’s response. For now, Bernstein’s message is that Bitcoin has time, though not endless time, to prepare. Featured image from Meta, chart from TradingView
The broker said advances in quantum computing are accelerating the timeline for crypto risk, but argued Bitcoin faces a multi-year upgrade cycle, not an existential crisis.
Bernstein reiterated a $67 price target on Figure as March loan volume topped $1 billion for the first time.
Bernstein said crypto equities like Coinbase, Robinhood, and Figure may be nearing a bottom after a sharp drawdown.
Strategy, the Michael Saylor-led company that has made Bitcoin accumulation its core business, bought $76.6 million worth of crypto last week, lifting its total holdings to 762,099 BTC — roughly 3.5% of the entire Bitcoin supply. Related Reading: Iran Rejects Peace Talk Claims, Leaving BTC Stuck At $70K Wall Street brokerage Bernstein used that move as a springboard to reaffirm one of the boldest price calls on the market: Bitcoin hitting $150,000 before the year is out. Institutional Money Is Moving Bernstein senior analyst Gautam Chhugani delivered the outlook in a note to clients Monday, saying BTC has found its price floor after months of decline. The call, if correct, would mean the drop to around $60,000 in early February was the lowest point in the current downturn — and that everything from here points upward. Bitcoin was trading past $71,000 at the time of the report, meaning the $150,000 target represents a more than 110% gain from current levels. Chhugani pointed to two forces he believes will push the price there: growing inflows into BTC spot exchange-traded funds and rising corporate demand. The numbers backing that claim are hard to ignore. Bitcoin spot ETFs pulled in $167 million in a single day this week — their first positive day in four sessions — and have attracted $1.6 billion in net inflows since March began. The market got a brief lift earlier in the week after reports that US President Donald Trump had ordered a five-day halt in strikes on Iran. Bitcoin climbed to $71,750 on Monday before easing back. Corporate Buyers Keep Piling In Beyond Strategy, institutional interest is broadening. Australia’s pension fund Hostplus announced plans to offer clients Bitcoin exposure through self-directed portfolios. Morgan Stanley, one of the biggest names in global banking, has updated its SEC filing for a US Bitcoin spot ETF, a sign the product could be closer to launching than previously expected. Bernstein described Strategy as a high-beta play on Bitcoin — meaning its stock tends to move sharply in the same direction as Bitcoin, only more so. Despite MSTR shares falling 50% from their all-time high, Chhugani set a price target of $450 for the stock, betting the company’s large Bitcoin balance sheet will pay off as prices recover. Not Everyone Agrees The Bottom Is In Bernstein’s optimism is not shared across the board. Veteran chart analyst Ali Martinez laid out a scenario where Bitcoin drops as far as $41,500 by mid-October 2026 before any meaningful recovery begins. Related Reading: XRP Ledger Signals Growth With $1M Unlock And Activity Surge Standard Chartered Bank has repeatedly warned that Bitcoin could revisit $50,000 first, citing weak economic conditions and limited demand. The bank also cut its own 2026 Bitcoin forecast from $150,000 to $100,000. The split between analysts reflects how uncertain this market remains. Bitcoin has never matched the scale of correction seen in past bear markets if the February low holds — that would make this one of the shallower pullbacks from an all-time high in the asset’s history. Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
Circle’s sharp stock drop may be overdone, Bernstein says, arguing investors are misinterpreting stablecoin yield restrictions.
Bernstein said Strategy could see 226% upside if bitcoin has bottomed, with STRC central to its capital model.
Bernstein analysts named Circle and Coinbase as top stablecoin proxies, citing USDC adoption and early agentic machine-payment opportunities.
Wall Street broker Bernstein took note of an institutional ownership shift as behind bitcoin's resilience during this latest bout of global turmoil.
Bernstein said bitcoin’s ownership base is strengthening as ETFs and corporate treasury buyers like Strategy reshape the market.
Stablecoins are decoupling from crypto market cycles as they are increasingly used for digital payments, Bernstein analysts said, which bodes well for USDC issuer Circle.
Bernstein maintained an outperform rating on Coinbase with a $440 target, citing $5.2 trillion in 2025 volume and 212% upside potential.
Bernstein sees $60-$75 as a bear-case accumulation range for Robinhood, with prediction markets tracking $435M ARR and a $160 price target.
The Wall Street broker said that the regulatory momentum and a volatile banking backdrop are amplifying demand for Figure’s blockchain-based credit platform.
The firm said accelerating tokenized credit volumes, rapid adoption of Figure Connect, and margin expansion underpin its bullish outlook.
After a choppy end to 2025, Wall Street broker Bernstein said crypto markets have likely bottomed and it sees a broad-based tokenization boom reshaping finance.
Wall Street research firm Bernstein has reiterated one of the boldest long-term calls in traditional finance, confirming a $1 million Bitcoin price target for 2033 while materially revising how and when it expects the market to get there. Bernstein Keeps $1 Million Price Target For Bitcoin The latest shift surfaced after Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets research at VanEck, shared an excerpt from a new Bernstein note on X. In it, the analysts write: “In view of recent market correction, we believe, the Bitcoin cycle has broken the 4-year pattern (cycle peaking every 4 years) and is now in an elongated bull-cycle with more sticky institutional buying offsetting any retail panic selling.” The analyst from Bernstein added: “Despite a ~30% Bitcoin correction, we have seen less than 5% outflows via ETFs. We are moving our 2026E Bitcoin price target to $150,000, with the cycle potentially peaking in 2027E at $200,000. Our long term 2033E Bitcoin price target remains ~$1,000,000.” Related Reading: Did 2025 Mark A Bear Market For Bitcoin? Predictions Point To A $150,000 Rally In 2026 This marks a clear evolution from Bernstein’s earlier cycle roadmap. In mid-2024, when the firm first laid out the $1 million-by-2033 thesis as part of its initiation on MicroStrategy, it projected a “cycle-high” of around $200,000 by 2025, up from an already-optimistic $150,000 target, explicitly driven by strong US spot ETF inflows and constrained supply. Subsequent commentary reiterated that path and framed Bitcoin firmly within the traditional four-year halving rhythm: ETF demand would supercharge, but not fundamentally alter, the classic post-halving boom-and-bust pattern. Reality forced an adjustment. Bitcoin did break to new highs on the back of ETF demand, validating Bernstein’s structural call that regulated spot products would be a decisive catalyst. However, price action has fallen short of the earlier timing: the market topped out in the mid-$120,000s rather than the $200,000 band originally envisaged for 2025, and a roughly 30% drawdown followed. Related Reading: Bitcoin To Hit $50 Million By 2041, Says EMJ Capital CEO What changed is not the end-state, but the path. Bernstein now argues that the four-year template has been superseded by a longer, ETF-anchored bull cycle. The critical datapoint underpinning this view is behavior in the recent correction: despite a near one-third price decline, spot Bitcoin ETFs have seen only about 5% net outflows, which the firm interprets as evidence of “sticky” institutional capital rather than the reflexive retail capitulation that defined previous tops. In the new framework, earlier targets are effectively rescheduled rather than abandoned. The mid-2020s six-figure region is shifted out by roughly one to two years, with $150,000 now penciled in for 2026 and a potential cycle peak near $200,000 in 2027, while the 2033 $1 million objective is left unchanged. In that sense, Bernstein’s track record is mixed but internally consistent. The firm has been directionally right on the drivers—ETF adoption, institutionalization, and supply absorption—but too aggressive on the speed at which those forces would translate into price. The latest note formalizes that recognition: same destination, slower ascent, and a Bitcoin market that Bernstein now sees as governed less by halvings and more by the behavior of large, ETF-mediated capital pools over the rest of the decade. At press time, BTC traded at $90,319. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
Bernstein kept its Street-high $510 price target on Coinbase, citing strong fundamentals and product expansion.
Wall Street research firm Bernstein said the move — which Robinhood made in conjunction with market-making giant SIG — raises the stakes for competitors like Polymarket and Kalshi.
With new laws defining market structure and stablecoin oversight, the broker said America’s digital asset industry has entered its most mature phase yet.
The bitcoin miner turned AI infrastructure play received three price target raises following yesterday's news, including from Bernstein, which lifted to $125.
Wall Street broker Bernstein said bitcoin miners are fast becoming an essential part of the AI value chain.
The Wall Street broker said SharpLink is a compliant, institutional gateway to Ethereum, and gave the stock a $24 price target, offering 75% potential upside.
The broker said lower interest rates could squeeze Circle’s revenue, but rising USDC adoption and operating leverage should keep profits on track.
Miners’ secured grid capacity and high-density sites offer hyperscalers a faster, cheaper path to expand AI data centers as interconnection delays mount.
The broker's $54 price target suggests 35% upside from Friday's $40 close.
The broker hiked its IREN price target to $75 from $20 while reiterating its outperform rating on the stock.
USDC supply has surged to $72.5 billion, 25% ahead of Bernstein’s 2025 estimates.
The crypto exchange received two buys, one market-perform, and one neutral rating from Wall Street analysts.
Bernstein reiterated its outperform rating on Robinhood and lifted its price target on the stock to $160 from $105.