A Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI) executive floated a $1 million Bitcoin price scenario if the United States were to buy 1 million BTC. 

In a Bitcoin Magazine podcast, Zach Shapiro, the head of policy for the Bitcoin-focused BPI think tank, said that a 1 million Bitcoin (BTC) purchase by the US would have a massive impact on the price of the asset. 

“If the United States announces that we are buying a million Bitcoin, that’s just a global seismic shock. […] I think first, Bitcoin price goes through the roof,” Shapiro said. “I think we’d probably go very quickly to something like a million dollars per Bitcoin.”   

The discussion followed US President Donald Trump’s March 7 executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a Digital Asset Stockpile.

A “Bitcoin superpower” should hold more Bitcoin 

BPI executive director Matthew Pines said that other nations are watching how the US positions itself with Bitcoin before formulating their own strategies.

The executive added that holding more Bitcoin aligns with Trump’s promise to make the US a Bitcoin superpower. 

“If Donald Trump wants to make good on his promise to be a Bitcoin superpower, that ultimately comes down to how much Bitcoin you have. This is a measure of how much the United States is making good on that rhetorical objective,” Pines said. 

Trump’s executive order also directs the Treasury and Commerce secretaries to develop “budget-neutral” strategies for acquiring more Bitcoin to expand the reserve without additional taxpayer burden.

On March 12, Senator Cynthia Lummis reintroduced the Boosting Innovation, Technology, and Competitiveness through Optimized Investment Nationwide (BITCOIN) Act to push US holdings above 1 million BTC. 

Related: Semler Scientific reports $42M paper loss on Bitcoin, floats $500M stock sale

Tariff earnings a “budget-neutral” strategy for buying Bitcoin

Pines also suggested ways to acquire Bitcoin in a budget-neutral fashion. He floated the idea of using tariff revenues to buy Bitcoin and other potential ways for the US government to purchase more BTC. 

“Revenues that the government can use to acquire more Bitcoin would be things like tariff revenue or other fees that the government collects that are not tax-based fees,” Pines said. This could include royalties from oil and gas leases, sales of federal land, physical gold and other digital assets.

On April 2, Trump imposed a 10% baseline tariff on all imports from all countries through an executive order. The president’s order also included reciprocal tariffs for countries that charge tariffs on US imports. However, the administration’s evolving tariff policy has created ongoing market uncertainty.

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VanEck’s head of research has pitched a new type of US Treasury bond partially backed by Bitcoin to help refinance $14 trillion in US debt.

Matthew Sigel pitched the concept of “BitBonds” — US Treasury bonds with exposure to Bitcoin (BTC) — at the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Summit 2025 on April 15.

The new 10-year bonds would be composed of 90% US traditional debt and 10% BTC exposure, Sigel said, appealing to both the US Treasury and global investors.

Even in a scenario where Bitcoin “goes to zero,” BitBonds would allow the US to save money to refinance the estimated $14 trillion of debt that will mature in the next three years and will need to be refinanced, he said.

Bitcoin to boost investor demand for T-bonds

“Interest rates are relatively high versus history. The Treasury must maintain continued investor demand for bonds, so they have to entice buyers,” Sigel said during the virtual event.

Meanwhile, bond investors want protection from the US dollar inflation and asset inflation, which makes Bitcoin a good fit for being a component of the bond, as the cryptocurrency has emerged as an inflation hedge.

An excerpt from Matthew Sigel’s presentation on Bitbonds at the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Summit 2025. Source: Matthew Sigel

With the proposed structure and a 10-year term, a BitBond would return a “$90 premium, along with whatever value that Bitcoin contains,” Sigel stated, adding that investors would receive all the Bitcoin gains up to a maximum annualized yield to maturity of 4.5%.

“If Bitcoin gains are big enough to provide that above a 4.5% annualized yield, the government and the bond buyer split the remaining gains 50 over 50,” the exec said.

Upsides and downsides

Compared to standard bonds, the proposed 10-year BitBonds would offer the investor substantial gains in a scenario where Bitcoin gains exceed the break-even rates, Sigel said.

A downside, however, is that Bitcoin must attain a “relatively high compound annual growth rate” on lower coupon rates in order for the investor to break even, he added.

Source: Matthew Sigel

From the government’s perspective, if they are able to sell the bond at a coupon of 1%, the government will save money “even if Bitcoin goes to zero,” Sigel estimated, adding:

“The same thing if the coupon is sold at 2%, Bitcoin can go to zero, and the government still saves money versus the current market rate of 4%. And it’s in these 3% to 4% coupons where Bitcoin has to work in order for the government to save money.

Previous BitBonds pitches to the government

While the idea of crypto-backed government bonds is not new, Sigel’s BitBond pitch follows a similar proposal by the Bitcoin Policy Institute in March.

The BPI estimates the program could generate potential interest savings of $70 billion annually and $700 billion over a 10-year term.

Treasury bonds are debt securities issued by the government to investors who loan money to the government in exchange for future payouts at a fixed interest rate.

Related: Bitcoin could hit $1M if US buys 1M BTC — Bitcoin Policy Institute

Crypto-enabled bonds are linked to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, allowing investors to gain exposure to potentially more enticing rewards.

Source: Bitcoin Policy Institute

As the US government grows bullish on crypto under President Donald Trump’s administration, the narrative for potential Bitcoin-enhanced Treasury bonds has been on the rise.

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A monthly market review by publicly traded US-based crypto exchange Coinbase shows that while the crypto market has contracted, it appears to be gearing up for a better quarter.

According to Coinbase’s April 15 monthly outlook for institutional investors, the altcoin market cap shrank by 41% from its December 2024 highs of $1.6 trillion to $950 billion by mid-April. BTC Tools data shows that this metric touched a low of $906.9 billion on April 9 and stood at $976.9 billion at the time of writing.

Venture capital funding to crypto projects has reportedly decreased by 50%–60% from 2021–22. In the report, Coinbase’s global head of research, David Duong, highlighted that a new crypto winter may be upon us.

“Several converging signals may be pointing to the start of a new ‘crypto winter’ as some extreme negative sentiment has set in due to the onset of global tariffs and the potential for further escalations,” he said.

Related: How trade wars impact stocks and crypto

Macroeconomic woes cause crypto turmoil

The report notes that lower venture capitalist interest “significantly limits the onboarding of new capital into the ecosystem,” which is felt primarily in the altcoin sector. The cause of that, according to Duong, is the current macroeconomic environment:

“All of these structural pressures stem from the uncertainty of the broader macro environment, where traditional risk assets have faced sustained headwinds from fiscal tightening and tariff policies, contributing to the paralysis in investment decision making.“

According to Coinbase researchers, those facts have resulted in “a difficult cyclical outlook for the digital asset space,” and warrant continued caution in the next four to six weeks. Still, the report’s author said that the market is likely to change directions explosively:

“When the sentiment finally resets, it’s likely to happen rather quickly and we remain constructive for the second half of 2025.“

Duong cited some metrics to indicate when the crypto market is moving between bull and bear market phases, including risk-adjusted performance and the 200-day moving average.

Another metric was the Bitcoin (BTC) Z-score, which compares market value and realized value to identify overbought and oversold conditions. A Z-score shows how unusual current price performance is when compared to historic data.

Bitcoin’s risk-adjusted performance. Source: Coinbase

This metric “naturally accounts for crypto’s larger volatility,” but it is also slow to react. This metric tends to generate few signals in stable markets. Coinbase’s model, based on it, determined that the bull market ended in late February but has since deemed the market neutral.

Coinbase’s Z-score Bitcoin model. Source: Coinbase

Instead, Coinbase’s analyst suggested that the 200-day moving average is a better indicator for determining market trends. It smooths out short-term noise while being relevant by considering the last 200 days’ worth of market data.

Coinbase’s 200-day moving average Bitcoin model. Source: Coinbase

The report also said that gauging the broader crypto market’s trend by the direction in which Bitcoin is moving is increasingly less reliable. This is because crypto expands into new sectors with decentralized finance (DeFi), decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN), artificial intelligence agents, and more, all with particular market forces independent of Bitcoin.

Related: Bitcoin’s wide price range to continue, no longer a ’long only’ bet — Analyst

Are we in a bear market?

Duong points out that the 200-day moving average suggests that Bitcoin’s recent decline moved it into bear market territory in late March. Still, applying the same model to the Coin50 Coinbase index based on the top 50 crypto assets shows a bear market since the end of February.

Coinbase’s 200-day moving average model applied to the Coin50 index. Source: Coinbase

Recent reports indicated that Bitcoin is showing growing resilience to macroeconomic headwinds compared with traditional financial markets. “Bitcoin’s decline was comparatively modest, revisiting price levels from around the US election period, “according to Wintermute.

Duong sees Bitcoin becoming less of a generalized crypto indicator as a consequence of this trend. He wrote:

“As Bitcoin’s role as a ‘store of value’ continues to grow, we think a holistic evaluation of crypto’s aggregate market activity will be needed to better define bull and bear markets for the asset class.“

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