U.S.: Pantera’s Morehead Predicts Bitcoin Will Outpace Gold Over the Next Decade

At a New York industry forum, Pantera Capital chief executive Dan Morehead argued that, over the next decade, bitcoin is positioned to outpace gold as a long-term store of value. Morehead framed his thesis around structural monetary dynamics: sustained fiat debasement and bitcoin’s fixed supply create a scarcity argument he says will increasingly attract allocators. He and fellow panelists highlighted a low current institutional footprint in crypto as latent upside rather than evidence of a bubble, noting many large funds and corporate treasuries still hold little to no exposure. Improved custody infrastructure, clearer regulatory signals and the growth of spot-Bitcoin ETF channels were cited repeatedly as the operational advances that could unlock meaningful inflows. Tom Lee and others on the panel pointed to expanding on-chain utility and deeper financial plumbing — stablecoins, tokenization and crypto-native payment rails — as vectors that can embed distributed-ledger technology into routine finance. External industry perspectives echoed this institutional-first outlook: Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan characterized the market as a late-stage trough that could presage a slow, institution-led advance, contingent on steadily lower realized volatility and methodical accumulation by large allocators. Hougan’s view supplements the Ondo Summit discussion by emphasizing that subdued retail flows and sideways price action can coexist with significant institutional build-up beneath the surface. However, the panel and adjacent reporting stressed a key caveat: U.S. policy uncertainty remains material. A recent pullback of a planned committee markup on the Clarity Act has repriced regulatory odds, slowing some partnership plans and underscoring why firms are treating legislative outcomes as a critical variable. By contrast, Europe’s phased MiCA rollout was noted as an example of regulatory clarity that has encouraged concentrated, predictable compliance planning. The conversation also touched on market-structure shifts — from perpetual liquidity migrating to decentralized venues to new dollar-backed on-chain lending marketplaces — and on efforts within DeFi to tighten operational controls and communications. Geopolitical developments and central-bank reserve decisions were discussed as an additional, potentially strategic source of demand for non-sovereign, censorship-resistant assets. Overall, while speakers were bullish about the long-term case for bitcoin, they framed the path as conditional: sustained institutional adoption depends on continued improvements in custody, regulatory certainty or demonstrable product-level utility that reduces operational and accounting frictions.