Galaxy Digital’s head of firmwide research, Alex Thorn, says 2026 may be one of the most difficult years to forecast for bitcoin, even as the firm maintains a bullish long-term outlook.

In a Dec. 21 post on X, Thorn said the coming year is “too chaotic to predict,” pointing to a mix of macro uncertainty, political risk and uneven crypto market momentum. Thorn said the comments were based on Galaxy Research’s Dec. 18 report, “26 Crypto, Bitcoin, DeFi, and AI Predictions for 2026,” which outlines the firm’s expectations for crypto markets and institutional adoption.

At the time of writing, Thorn said the broader crypto market was already deep in a bear phase, with bitcoin struggling to re-establish sustained bullish momentum. Until the asset decisively trades above the $100,000 to $105,000 range, he said, downside risk remains.

What options markets are signaling

Derivatives markets underscore that uncertainty. According to Thorn, bitcoin options pricing implies roughly equal probabilities of sharply different outcomes next year, with traders assigning similar odds to prices near $70,000 or $130,000 by mid-2026 and near $50,000 or $250,000 by year-end.

Options markets are widely used by institutional investors to hedge future price risk, and such wide ranges suggest professionals are preparing for large price swings rather than a clear directional trend.

Signs of structural maturity

At the same time, Thorn pointed to signs of structural change beneath the surface. He said that long-term bitcoin volatility — a measure of how widely prices fluctuate over extended periods — has been declining. He attributed part of that shift to the growth of institutional strategies such as options overwriting and yield-generation programs, which tend to dampen extreme price moves.

That evolution is also visible in bitcoin’s volatility smile, which describes how option prices vary across strike levels. Thorn said that downside protection is now priced more expensively than upside exposure, a pattern more commonly seen in mature macro assets, such as equities or commodities, than in high-growth markets.

Why a quiet year may not matter

For Thorn, those signals help explain why a potentially range-bound or “boring” 2026 would not undermine bitcoin’s longer-term case. Even if prices drift lower or approach long-term technical levels such as the 200-week moving average, he expects institutional adoption and market maturation to continue.

Beyond short-term price action, Galaxy’s longer-term conviction rests on deeper institutional integration.

In its Dec. 18 report, the firm stated that a major asset-allocation platform could incorporate bitcoin into standard model portfolios, a move that would embed the asset into default investment strategies rather than through discretionary trades. Such inclusion would direct persistent flows into bitcoin regardless of market cycles, reinforcing Galaxy’s view that structural adoption — rather than near-term volatility — will shape outcomes into 2027 and beyond.

Thorn believes that expanding institutional access, potential easing of monetary conditions, and demand for alternatives to fiat currencies could position bitcoin to follow gold’s path as a hedge against monetary debasement. Galaxy predicts that the flagship cryptocurrency could reach $250,000 by the end of 2027.