Should you buy bitcoin in 2026? Australia’s top economists give their views on investing in the cryptocurrency

Owning bitcoin has been the hottest wealth creation trade of the past decade, as the online token surged 138 times in value since 2016 to create a spectacular number of millionaire backers.

However, successful investing is about finding the big winners of tomorrow, not yesterday. So, The Nightly asked Australia’s top economists and market strategists for their views on bitcoin, and whether it can extend its jaw-dropping run of wealth creation over the next decade.

In theory, economists are more independent than the crypto exchange representatives paid to promote bitcoin that often appear in the media.

Economists are also uniquely qualified as experts on the financial system and monetary policy. This means they should have a better idea than most, as to how the world’s largest cryptocurrency will perform.

Stephen Miller is a former researcher at the Australian Treasury, long-time fund manager at investment giant Blackrock and now a market strategist at GSFM Funds Management.

He says he has allocated one per cent of his own self managed super fund to bitcoin and expects it to perform well into the future.

“But I don’t pretend to fully understand where it’s going, as nobody really does,” he says. “The way I approach it is that it has some diversifying qualities for a portfolio. I think what Blackrock also says is you can justify a one to two per cent allocation to bitcoin in a multi-asset portfolio.”

Price may inversely track interest rates

Other professionals like Matt Sherwood, the Head of Investment Strategy at Perpetual Investments, are more sceptical than Mr Miller.

“Whether you choose to buy it comes down to your risk tolerance,” Mr Sherwood said. “The benefits are that there’s a limited supply of 21 million coins and it’s highly liquid. But there’s no cash flow like in equities, or bonds, so there’s no dividends or income. And it’s not a liquid asset as an alternative to cash, as it’s hard to use for transactions as most people don’t accept it.”

Mr Sherwood added that it’s impossible to predict the price direction of the world’s largest cryptocurrency over 2026.

“It’s a speculative asset so it comes down to what do central banks do with interest rates,” he said.

“If we get more liquidity (interest rate cuts from the US Federal Reserve) it’s price would be more likely to go up than down,” said Mr Sherwood. “But if central banks start to drain liquidity and are forced to increase interest rates later this year, I wouldn’t want to hold cryptocurrency.”

As at December 11, interest rate futures traders still expect the US Federal Reserve to cut interest rates to between 3 per cent and 3.25 per cent by the end of 2026, versus the rate of 3.5 per cent to 3.75 per cent on December 11.

However, the outlook is uncertain and in Australia the Reserve Bank is expected to lift interest rates by as much as 50 basis points over 2026 in a battle to contain broad-based price inflation that emerged over the second half of 2025.

Could bitcoin work as money?

Mr Miller agrees that anyone interested in bitcoin should recognise that it’s volatile and vulnerable to large price falls if central banks are forced to lift interest rates.

“So don’t put your house on it,” he said. “Really, the way I think about it as an uber cautious acceptance and diversifier as it may perform well when other assets aren’t performing so well, and vice versa. Also, my old boss Larry Fink (the Blackrock CEO) has written about how asset tokenisation may revolutionise finance, so bitcoin gives you an option on that.”

Others such as Dr Shane Oliver the Chief Economist and Head of Investment Strategy at AMP, doubt that bitcoin, or other cryptocurrencies, could replace the Australian dollar as money to pay for goods and services.

In fact, Dr Oliver said the launch of bitcoin exchange traded funds in the US in January 2024 was a big driver of its rising price and evidence that it’s being bought as an investment, rather than to use as money.

“Unless a government allows bitcoin to be legal tender in their country, then it can’t replace fiat money,” Dr Oliver said.

“El Salvador has done so, but it’s struggled. There’s also a problem as bitcoin is not really structured to be a transactional currency as its proof of work requirement leads to relatively high transaction costs, currently about $1, but it can vary a lot, and can take up to a few hours to complete.”

As such Dr Oliver said bitcoin is now seen by most of its owners as a store of value similar to gold, rather than traditional money that can be deposited into a savings account at a bank to earn interest.

“Of course a government could set up a digital currency based on a blockchain, say Ethereum, but that’s unlikely to be Bitcoin,” Dr Oliver added.

The veteran economist and financial markets expert also pointed to the fact Bitcoin has regularly fallen up to 80 per cent from peak to trough.

“So anticipate bouts of extreme volatility,” he warned anyone thinking about getting into Bitcoin.