Written by: Michael Saylor, Founder of Strategy

Translated by: Saoirse, Foresight News

In the next decade, the most significant developments in Bitcoin will not come from frequent changes in the underlying protocol but from its increasingly important position across various global industries. The foundation layer will stabilize, the capital markets will continue to deepen, various application scenarios will keep expanding, and different institutional investors will gradually enter the market, with the whole world relying on Bitcoin to build various systems.

Bitcoin is not a tech stock, not a payment company, nor a software platform that competes by piling on new features. Bitcoin is a monetary network. Its purpose is not rapid iteration and starting over, but stable operation and never failing. This essential difference will define Bitcoin's development path in the next decade.

Bitcoin is Digital Capital

Bitcoin has already won its first crucial battle. An increasing number of people worldwide realize that Bitcoin is digital capital: it possesses scarcity, durability, portability, divisibility, programmability, and can enable global transfers.

The core value proposition of Bitcoin is not to "replace all payment channels" but to "become a neutral, global value benchmark with scarcity, with capital, credit, and commercial activities all referencing it."

The design intention of the underlying layer is not suitable for small daily payments like buying coffee, but rather for final settlement services. Blockspace resources are scarce, relying on energy, cryptography, economic incentives, and network consensus to ensure security.

Large asset settlements, corporate reserve funds, collateral settlements, and final delivery of asset ownership should all be completed at the foundational layer. In contrast, personal consumption payments, digital banking, lending, credit products, stable value tools, and various interest-bearing financial products will revolve around Bitcoin, built on its upper layer, derived from Bitcoin, or landed through institutional channels connected to Bitcoin.

Bitcoin will always maintain its original form, while the world builds countless applications on top of it.

The Influence of the Four-Year Halving Cycle Will Continue to Weaken

The Bitcoin block halving mechanism always holds significant importance, as it is a core component of the entire monetary system. Each halving reduces the new circulating supply, further solidifying the credibility of the Bitcoin total supply limit of 21 million coins.

However, the four-year halving cycle can no longer dominate the overall trend of Bitcoin.

Today, Bitcoin has a high degree of institutionalization and globalization, sufficient liquidity, and is deeply integrated into the global capital market. Simple narratives based on retail cycles can no longer explain its price fluctuations. While the total supply on the supply side continues to shrink, the structure of demand has undergone fundamental changes.

In the next decade, the price trends of Bitcoin will be less affected by the new output from miners and more determined by capital flows from various sources: inflows and outflows of ETF funds, corporate treasury allocations, sovereign reserves adjustments from various countries, bank credit funds, derivatives trading funds, insurance funds, collateral funds, structured credit funds, and global savings.

Halving tightens supply, and capital flows determine the long-term growth trend.

The next stage of Bitcoin's popularity will not just involve more retail investors buying it but also various industries beginning to allocate Bitcoin on their balance sheets.

Digital Credit Accelerates Bitcoin's Popularity

Bitcoin is digital capital, while digital credit serves as the bridge connecting this digital capital with the global broad financial system.

Capital markets require term matching, yield products, credit tools, collateral assets, term conversion, risk management, and various yield-type financial products. Bitcoin itself provides the world with a superior capital carrier; financial products backed by Bitcoin can enable this digital capital to circulate in the global economy.

Digital capital transforms into digital credit, digital credit gives rise to digital currency, and digital currency becomes the interface of interaction between Bitcoin and the global economy.

This system will not weaken Bitcoin; rather, it will strengthen Bitcoin's value.

When banks, capital markets, credit instruments, and settlement systems developed around gold, the practical value of gold significantly increased; similarly, after mortgages, real estate trusts, asset securitization, insurance, and credit markets emerged around real estate, the financial attributes of property expanded significantly; after stock exchanges, index funds, derivatives, margin trading, and custody networks were established, liquidity and use cases expanded exponentially.

Bitcoin will replicate this development path, and supported by a global digital network, the speed of growth will far surpass that of the previous cases.

The next wave of Bitcoin's popularity will not be limited to personal investors; individuals, enterprises, banks, funds, insurance companies, pension funds, sovereign entities, and credit markets will all use Bitcoin as a capital asset.

Various Interaction Interfaces Will Become the Main Battlefield for Industry Competition

Everyone acknowledges Bitcoin's unique value attributes, but the way each person interacts with Bitcoin varies.

Some people self-custody their private keys, some hold Bitcoin ETFs, some hold Bitcoin through banks, some enterprises hold Bitcoin directly, some use Bitcoin as collateral, some hold credit products backed by Bitcoin, and others use digital currencies issued based on Bitcoin-backed credit systems.

All the aforementioned interaction channels have their value, but they have essential differences. Self-custodying private keys allows one to maintain asset sovereignty; institutional custody lowers the participation threshold for ordinary people; ETFs simplify the asset allocation process; banks utilize Bitcoin to create credit products; enterprises issue related securities; miners ensure network security; all network nodes execute underlying rules; and holders complete capital allocation.

The core contradiction in the industry over the next decade will not be whether Bitcoin can survive—Bitcoin has already taken root. The real core contradiction is whether all financial exposures linked to Bitcoin in the market correspond to real Bitcoin assets or if the global financial system will create vast amounts of "paper Bitcoins" without physical backing.

Custody mechanisms, asset transparency, reserve proofs, risk management, capital structure, and counterparty risk are all crucial.

Even if the peripheral financial system breeds substantial leverage and information opacity issues, thus triggering periodic crises, the Bitcoin underlying protocol itself remains robust. Bitcoin cannot prevent human operational errors; it will only make various risks clear and expose them in the market.

The Threshold for Modifying the Underlying Protocol Will Continue to Rise

Bitcoin's "immune system" is the stringent consensus mechanism of the entire network. This is not its shortcoming; it is precisely the core source of Bitcoin's value.

Transaction fees determine the cost of using block space; all network nodes set the network rules; miners are responsible for packaging blocks; holders allocate capital resources; any changes to the underlying protocol require an overwhelming consensus from the vast majority of participants across the network.

The most important characteristic of Bitcoin is not its ability to upgrade and iterate easily, but rather its immunity to arbitrary alterations.

In the next decade, the foundational layer of Bitcoin will become more conservative, requiring stronger evidence to modify the protocol. Any proposed changes that may introduce systemic risks, weaken decentralization, disrupt the integrity of monetary rules, expand policy attack surfaces, or trigger unpredictable negative consequences will be resisted across the network.

This trend towards conservatism is a positive development for the entire network. Flawed improvement ideas should be denied before they become protocol changes.

Innovation will not stagnate but will entirely transition to the peripheral ecosystem: wallets, custody services, lightning networks, sidechains, tiered protocols, institutional clearing systems, collateral systems, digital credit, and digital currency sectors will continue to iterate and innovate.

The foundational layer will become the ultimate carrier for the final settlement of global assets.

The future of Bitcoin depends on whether the global market can foster various innovations around it without damaging the underlying protocol itself.

The Mining Industry Will Transform into Global Energy Infrastructure

The Bitcoin mining industry will increasingly professionalize and institutionalize, deeply binding with the global energy market.

Mining is the bridge between digital security and physical energy; it converts electricity into the security guarantee for network currency, creating a flexible location, on-demand shutdown, and an economic-regulated global energy consumption market.

The core competitiveness of top mining companies will not merely be possessing high-performance mining machines, but rather holding quality electricity contracts, a healthy capital structure, mature funding reserve strategies, stable relationships with power grids, and the ability to monetize electricity resources during drastic fluctuations in energy prices.

As block mining subsidies continuously decrease, the importance of transaction fees will keep rising, increasing the value of block space. The mining industry will detach from the niche geek technical track and transform into a strategically significant energy infrastructure and capital market-related industry.

On one hand, Bitcoin mining safeguards network security; on the other hand, it stabilizes energy demand, consumes idle and abandoned electricity resources, and simultaneously promotes global discussions on the deep connections between money and energy.

Existing Risks Are Real and Cannot Be Ignored

The greatest risk to Bitcoin is not complete disappearance.

The five truly core risks are: improvement schemes with vulnerabilities damage the underlying protocol; custodial organizations obscure real asset reserves; high leverage distorts Bitcoin pricing; and various countries’ regulatory entities control the channels for interactions with Bitcoin:

First, damage to the underlying protocol. The integrity of the Bitcoin monetary system relies on stringent consensus; modifications at the base layer must be minimal, have undergone comprehensive and rigorous review, and secured overwhelming support across the network to be implemented.

Second, a proliferation of paper Bitcoins. If the total amount of Bitcoin credits issued by intermediary organizations far exceeds the actual circulating supply of Bitcoin, the market may experience periodic credit crises. The underlying protocol itself will not collapse, but investors will suffer massive losses due to high leverage, opacity of information, and double pledging.

Third, custodial services moving towards centralization. If the vast majority of users hold Bitcoin through only a few banks, exchanges, funds, and applications, Bitcoin itself remains scarce but the channels for user participation will be continually restricted, facing constant control over permissions.

Fourth, regulatory capture risk. While governments cannot modify Bitcoin's underlying code, they can regulate upstream and downstream processes such as exchanges, brokers, custodial organizations, miners, banks, tax filings, and energy access.

Fifth, uncertainty in the development of the fee market. With declining block subsidies, Bitcoin needs a long-term stable and high-value fee market to maintain network security. I believe that once Bitcoin becomes the mainstream collateral for global settlement, this fee market will take shape, but the development process will not be smooth.

All of the risks mentioned above will not render Bitcoin completely ineffective; they merely highlight the core problems that the industry needs to resolve in the future.

Prospects for the Next Decade

By 2036, I expect the scope of Bitcoin holders to be broader, institutional participation to be deeper, its political influence to increase globally, and it to be deeply integrated into the global financial system, while participants in the entire network will more proactively defend Bitcoin's foundational rules.

It will become a globalized digital capital asset; serve as a reserve asset for individuals, enterprises, funds, banks, and sovereign entities; become the core collateral asset in the digital credit market; facilitate the final delivery and settlement of large assets at the foundational level; serve as a value anchor for various new types of digital currencies; and support a complete ecosystem of continuously expanding credit, yield products, derivatives, insurance, custody, and structured financial products.

Meanwhile, the changes to the foundational protocol will be far smaller compared to all the applications and financial systems built around it. This is the paradox of Bitcoin.

The world needs digital capital and digital credit, and the future will also spur significant demand for digital currencies; the global market will build a new financial system around Bitcoin.

However, the mission of Bitcoin itself is not to encompass all financial functions. The core mission of Bitcoin is to become that timeless foundation of value.