Bitcoin at $400,000 by 2030: A 'reasonable target' according to Coinbase CEO

The bottom has passed according to Brian Armstrong, who sees Bitcoin reaching $400,000 by 2030

As a guest on the Squawk Box Asia show on CNBC this September 10, 2026, Brian Armstrong offered a clearly bullish read on the digital asset market. The Coinbase executive believes that Bitcoin has already hit its low point in the current cycle: “bottom is in,” he declared.

Brian Armstrong also confirmed that the $400,000 target per BTC by 2030 remains a “reasonable target.” The Coinbase CEO relies on the classic four-year cycle mechanics inherent to Bitcoin. “If you follow crypto, it generally goes through cycles of about four years. There’s a run-up, a bit of euphoria, then a bear market. Most bear markets last about a year. And we are just reaching the one-year mark of this [bear] phase,” he explained.

At the time of writing, the Bitcoin price was hovering around $77,000. A $400,000 target would therefore represent more than five times the current level over a four-year time horizon.

An almost conservative goal compared to other institutional price forecasts

When compared to other forecasts for 2030, the $400,000 target put forward by Brian Armstrong appears relatively moderate. ARK Invest, led by Cathie Wood, bases its model on three scenarios for 2030: a bear case at $300,000, a base case at $710,000, and a bull case initially set at $1.5 million! Cathie Wood has, however, slightly lowered her most bullish scenario to $1.2 million per BTC, citing the rise of stablecoins for payment use cases (which would partially compete with Bitcoin’s value proposition).

At Standard Chartered, Geoffrey Kendrick initially targeted Bitcoin at $500,000 by the end of 2028, before pushing this target to 2030 in December 2025 (his 2028 target being lowered to $300,000). On the Fidelity side, Jurrien Timmer, Director of Global Macro, projects Bitcoin at $1 million by 2030, relying on Metcalfe’s Law (the value of a network is proportional to the square of its number of users). Armstrong’s figure thus falls into the lower end of this institutional BTC price range.

Beyond the long-term goal, Brian Armstrong also outlined a closer horizon. “I think the next two years are going to be good for Bitcoin,” he said on CNBC. This window coincides with the pre-halving phase, a cycle that the Coinbase boss historically associates with anticipated run-ups: “The Bitcoin halving event is about a year and a half away, and we tend to see gains with it.”

Halving, CLARITY Act, and bond markets

Indeed, the next halving – which is the halving of the mining block reward – is expected around mid-April 2028, at block height 1,050,000. This mechanical reduction in the production of new bitcoins by miners, which will here move from 3.125 to 1.5625 BTC per block, reminds investors of the scarcity programmed into Bitcoin’s code. In the past, halvings have been marked by bullish price periods.

Another bullish pillar for Bitcoin concerns bond markets. According to Brian Armstrong, tensions over sovereign debt globally are pushing capital toward scarce, non-sovereign assets. And precisely, Bitcoin is one of those assets that claims to be a safe haven in the event of a bond crisis.

The Coinbase CEO then cites the regulatory catalyst. The CLARITY Act in the United States, with a Senate vote expected on September 15, could also push the crypto market higher, with Bitcoin in the lead. “If the bill passes, we get a legislative framework. If not, the SEC and CFTC are ready to issue their own rules,” he said. For him, the digital asset sector would therefore be a winner in either case (even if the approval of the CLARITY Act were to drag on).

A varied track record of predictions for the Coinbase boss

Although it might seem high to some, this $400,000 target in 2030 for Bitcoin actually marks a downward revision from Brian Armstrong. A year ago, as Bitcoin was soaring toward a new all-time high, the executive publicly predicted that BTC would reach $1 million by 2030.

More than the precise timing of a price on a given date (which is pure speculation), this $400,000 target should rather be taken as a long-term adoption thesis for Bitcoin. In the short term, for investors, the real question regarding BTC price direction remains, on one hand, the September 15 vote on the CLARITY Act, and above all the Fed’s decision on whether to raise interest rates on September 16. We will then have a good idea of the sustainability of the current Bitcoin rebound (or conversely, whether to reconsider the optimism of a bottom already passed).

👉 On the same topic – CLARITY Act: without a favorable vote from Congress, we will probably have to wait until 2030

Source: CNBC