BlockBeats report: On August 27, CZ stated at Bitcoin Asia 2026 in Hong Kong that Bitcoin reaching $1 million will take less than 25 years—it will happen faster. What’s currently lacking is practical adoption, particularly for large-scale payments and its role as a reserve asset for retirement pensions. He believes Bitcoin will ultimately become more important than gold; the current market cap gap is only about tenfold, and Bitcoin could catch up during the next bull market. Major nations’ transition will take time, as gold’s ownership and valuation mechanisms are already well-established, but the direction is clear. There is a very small possibility that some other superior digital currency could surpass Bitcoin before Bitcoin overtakes gold, but he considers this probability very low.
From an investment perspective, CZ believes the industry should not be viewed as a zero-sum game: RWA and stock tokenization will benefit Bitcoin. For Asians, accessing U.S. stocks is difficult and inconvenient due to time zone differences; tokenization opens the gateway to U.S. stocks, drawing users into crypto platforms first, making it easier for them to gain Bitcoin exposure, enabling two-way capital flows. The same applies to multi-chain ecosystems—without Bitcoin, industry growth would be slower; innovations on chains like Ethereum and BNB Chain will ultimately be absorbed by Bitcoin, which remains the largest and most decentralized long-term store of value. He recommends that countries establish crypto reserves, issue their own stablecoins, and tokenize assets such as rare earth elements, real estate, and intellectual property to attract cross-border capital.
Regarding the next bull market cycle, CZ explicitly stated that he cannot predict it—just as ICOs in 2017 and later NFTs were only clear in hindsight. Currently, he believes RWA and AI are the strongest areas; stablecoins, centralized and decentralized exchanges, memecoins, and DeFi will all continue to grow, and NFTs may return in some form. The integration of AI and crypto will initially begin with stablecoins, then expand to Bitcoin and other tokens; AI companies building computing power may issue “data center tokens.” In terms of implementation order, AI-powered trading will precede AI payments, as trading demands real-time data and automated order execution more urgently.