J.P. Morgan Asset Management has included Bitcoin for the first time in its annual Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions report, projecting a 10% compound annual return over the next 10 to 15 years—the highest among the asset classes covered.
The forecast appears in the 2027 edition of the report, released Monday, marking the 31st annual edition and the first to feature Bitcoin. It tops the firm's projections for U.S. large-cap stocks at 7.5%, gold at 5.5% and a classic 60/40 stock-bond portfolio at 7%.
The report also flags volatility as a key caveat. Bitcoin's annualized volatility is pegged at 55%, compared with about 17% for gold. As a result, Bitcoin's arithmetic average return—a simple average of yearly gains—comes in at 20.9%, more than double the compound figure investors would actually realize after large price swings.
JPMorgan stopped short of folding Bitcoin into the models it uses to map how assets move together. "For the first time, we put a range on bitcoin returns, though we do not yet include bitcoin in our main covariance matrices," the report states. Instead, the firm built a separate, smaller matrix comparing Bitcoin with a subset of assets, citing its volatility and unstable correlations as obstacles to broader portfolio inclusion. JPMorgan also pushed back on the idea that currency debasement will drive a rush into crypto, calling that view "wide of the mark."
