Bitcoin Is Holding Above $80K as Momentum Builds Toward a Potential $1 Million Future 

April was a massive month for Bitcoin up 12%, making it the strongest monthly performance we've seen since May of last year.

And in New York morning trade, we are looking at Bitcoin still holding above that 80,000 level.

But as Wall Street gobbles up supply, the fundamentals of Bitcoin may be debated.

My next guest has been at the center of that debate since even before.

Bitcoin existed.

Well, Adam Back is British cryptographer, the CEO of Blockstream, and he joins us now.

Adam, great to have you here.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Well, are you Satoshi?

No, it's a common question, and I'm not, and I think that remains a mystery for the future.

As Toshi stepped away in 2011 for participating in the forums, there's effectively been no new information or forum posts for people to analyze, so it's kind of a cold trail at this point.

And we are here at Consensus 2026.

The focus is on convergence, what we're seeing between DeFi as well as Tratfi, and a lot has changed since Bitcoin first emerged.

So where are we right now?

Um, I think the institutional interests, you know, so the sovereigns, the people buying the ETFs, both institutional and retail, um, and the pension funds, it's mostly Bitcoin focused off the crypto assets, right?

And I think that's because they are long term tactical investors where the other crypto assets are kind of more speculative in nature, so.

No, I think it's, uh, you know, most of those Bitcoins are held in custodians, no doubt, but it's, uh, it's all about accessibility.

So for certain groups of investors, that's the way that they interact with their investments.

And so, you know, it's all about giving the average person access to Bitcoin.

Some will be able to do that via ETFs or their advisors.

Ultimately, many don't make self-directed investment decisions, and so they will benefit via the model portfolios as they roll into mutual funds, managed funds, pension funds, and things like that.

So I think that that wave is still ahead of us.

Yes, and you've actually highlighted how easy it is to access Bitcoin now, whether we're talking about directly or indirectly as an investment.

But as a cryptographer, I do want to get your take on the threat of quantum and Qay that we've all been hearing about.

So can you separate the actual facts from some of the noise?

Yeah, I mean, so for ourselves at Blockstream, we've been, we have a research team that's been working on quantum for over a year now, and we have a number of papers and a specific proposal for a Bitcoin optimized version of the NIS standard, uh, which was released in October 2024, so quite recently.

I think that's a reasonable path for Bitcoin to add another signature scheme.

They already did add one in 2021, so there's a precedent.

And that would then be an opt-in way for people to be quantum ready without paying the cost of the big signatures today.

So I think that's important because you don't want people to have a kind of cost deterrent from adoption.

Then hopefully we can get a visibility in the market of how many people are ready and, you know, adapt from that in the future if the rate of hardware progress speeds up.

To date it's been relatively slow.

The current state of the hardware is rather basic in terms of what it can compute, but there's genuinely interesting physics research being done.

So I think, you know, the market is with very esoteric, esoteric topics, very specialized topics, a tendency to overreact or, you know, To read too much into marketing output from technology firms looking for fundraising ultimately, so I think realistically it's next decade, at the earliest, not this decade, but we'll see how it progresses.

And finally, before I let you go, Adam, we've been hearing about a lot of partnerships as well as announcements so far here at Consensus 2026.

But when you look at sentiment, as well as some of the conversations that are actually taking place on the ground, give us an understanding of how you would gauge the temperature as well as the sentiment.

Yeah, I mean, I think there continues to be robust news flow on the kind of open for business regulations that that track is progressing domestically within the US and internationally.

Um, quite a bit of news flow of, uh, large financial institutions, you know, providing Bitcoin.

So we just hear that E-Trade is adding Bitcoin to 8.6 million clients, uh, with a lower fee structure since some of the main crypto exchanges in the US.

So that's attractive.

I think, you know, for individuals, it's interesting to look at the balance sheet of where you're trading from a risk perspective, you know, post-FTX world.

Also the trilateral agreements where people are starting to separate the custody from the exchange, which has always been the case, you know, for 100 years, probably in the traditional world, but that model is coming into Bitcoin, which I think is good for security and confidence.

And then, as I say, the institutional adoption, the actual placement of Bitcoin into managed portfolios, I think that's all still ahead of us.

So.

I think the market kind of got ahead of itself and assumed that would impact the price last year, but I think that's still to come, you know, into this year and next.

And finally, before I let you go, do you have any price targets, not just for 2026, but beyond?

Well, I do have a kind of proposition bet with somebody on Twitter for a million dollars Bitcoin in this halving cycle, so it's by spring 2028.

And another one which is not going so well for me so far, which is for Bitcoin to reach parity with gold.

Now of course gold has done rather well in the last 12 months, so that bet has kind of moved against me a bit so far.

But we'll see.

I think, you know, one interesting observation with gold is that a much Smaller percentage of gold is in ETFs and price is set at the margin, and as Bitcoin's market cap gets a bit closer to gold, you might see some defectors, people who would sell gold to ETFs to buy Bitcoin ETFs, and I believe there's a bit of indication that has happened incrementally even during the last year.

So it's all in play.

Well, Adam, we will have to wait and see, and hopefully we have you back before then.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you.