Bitcoin fell to $75,000 after the U.S. Senate vote on the CLARITY Act failed. It then climbed back to the $80,000 to $85,000 range. The market absorbed the news quickly. However, longer-term BTC prospects are harder to assess for retail investors, so here’s expert opinion.
The failed vote on the CLARITY Act, the U.S. bill meant to set a market structure framework for digital assets, left the crypto industry without the statutory clarity it had expected. Bitcoin’s price recovered, but regulatory uncertainty remains. Meanwhile, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has said Bitcoin could reach $400,000 by 2030. Is that even possible?
PaySpace Magazine (PSM) spoke with Tim Sun, Senior Researcher at HashKey Group, about what the vote means for Bitcoin. The expert also discussed how the SEC and CFTC are acting under their existing authorities and assessed which conditions would have to be met for Bitcoin to reach an $8 trillion market capitalization.
PSM: What is the outlook for Bitcoin following the failure of the CLARITY Act vote?
Tim Sun: From a price action perspective, following the defeat of the vote, BTC briefly pulled back to around $75,000, but it did not form a sustained downward trend and subsequently rebounded to reclaim the $80,000 to $85,000 range. This actually indicates that, for Bitcoin, the CLARITY Act was primarily a sentiment-driven negative rather than a regulatory rejection.
PSM: If the CLARITY Act is delayed long-term, how will regulatory uncertainty impact Crypto?
Tim Sun: Following the setback of the CLARITY Act, the SEC and the CFTC have not halted their operations. On the contrary, regulators are still utilizing their existing authorities to advance specific rules on tokenized securities, trading, and issuance. For instance, the SEC’s introduction of conditional exemptions for tokenized stock trading following the bill’s defeat demonstrates that a substitute pathway for U.S. regulatory supply is emerging.
However, this does not mean that this alternative pathway can fully replace congressional legislation. Because the authority of executive agencies will face new power dynamics with incoming presidential terms, the lack of a statutory framework at the congressional level leaves existing rules with a higher degree of policy reversibility.
PSM: Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong recently stated that Bitcoin could reach $400,000 by 2030. Do you think this scenario is realistically possible? What conditions need to be met to achieve this price level?
Tim Sun: If Bitcoin reaches $400,000, it would correspond to a total market capitalization of roughly $8 trillion, which is approaching half of the current global investable gold market size. At this magnitude, Bitcoin can no longer remain just a high-volatility alternative asset; it must complete an evolutionary leap in its asset attributes.
First, much like gold, Bitcoin needs to become a standardized asset within the asset allocations of global large-scale institutions. In other words, only when pension funds, insurance capital, sovereign wealth funds, and large asset management companies begin to form stable, long-term allocation demands will Bitcoin be able to secure a capital foundation matching a multi-trillion-dollar market cap.
Second, Bitcoin’s attribute as a non-sovereign scarce asset needs to build a broader market consensus. Today, its price remains heavily influenced by U.S. dollar liquidity, U.S. Treasury yields, and risk appetite. If global government debt continues to expand in the future and fiscal constraints rise, prompting the market to place greater emphasis on the long-term purchasing power of fiat currency and sovereign debt risk, then Bitcoin’s hedging value relative to the U.S. dollar and the sovereign credit system can truly enter traditional asset allocation frameworks.
Finally, looking at actual capital structures, relying solely on ETF funds and native crypto capital will be insufficient to support an $8 trillion long-term valuation. Reaching this scale requires substantive holdings from pension funds, sovereign funds, corporate balance sheets, and capital at the nation-state level, truly forming Bitcoin reserves in a meaningful sense.
Note: Source for Coinbase CEO $400K prediction – Yahoo! Finance
Read more:
