TD Cowen is reiterating a bullish medium-term path for Bitcoin, projecting roughly $225,000 per coin by the end of fiscal 2027, while sketching an upside scenario that would take the asset to around $450,000. The call leans on tokenization as a structural demand driver, but the firm flags that the relationship it’s modeling may not hold if market dynamics evolve differently than expected.
TD Cowen’s Bitcoin Outlook
In a research note dated Feb. 24, 2026, TD Cowen framed its more aggressive scenario around two interacting assumptions: “the number of tokenized assets increases 100-fold (over time)” and transaction velocity tied to those assets falls by 90%. Under those conditions, the firm said its analysis “suggests a potential five-fold increase in the price of bitcoin, to roughly $450k per coin.”
The $450,000 figure is positioned as a “bull case” illustration rather than a point forecast. TD Cowen emphasizes that its current base expectation is lower, writing: “our current forecast calls for Bitcoin to reach a price of ~$225k per coin by the end of FY27.”
The firm adds a key caveat about methodology and uncertainty: “While not a bottom-up forecast, our current Bitcoin price estimate reflects a variety of assumptions, one of which is increased tokenization of real-world assets, potentially including equity securities. Though we believe our assumptions are well-supported by trends observed to date, there can be no assurance that these relationships hold going forward.”
The logic is straightforward: if tokenized real-world assets proliferate and the on-chain “velocity” associated with those assets slows sharply, the implied value captured by the underlying settlement asset in TD Cowen’s framework rises. The note doesn’t present this as a mechanical law, but as a sensitivity to how tokenization adoption and transactional behavior could reshape demand conditions around crypto rails.
Policy remains the other major moving part in TD Cowen’s broader crypto framework. In early January, the firm pointed to market-structure legislation,specifically the CLARITY Act, as a potential catalyst that could formalize jurisdictional lines across the SEC and CFTC and bring clearer rules for staking, custody, and trading platforms.
TD Cowen wrote at the time: “We believe there is room for compromise on all the issues in ways that the crypto sector can accept.” But it warned the harder constraint may be political rather than technical: “The problem will be the White House as Senate Democrats will likely insist on ethics rules for elected officials including the President and his family.”
The bank’s timeline expectation is that Congress acts this year, but not without slippage risk. “We expect Congress will enact legislation in 2026,” TD Cowen wrote, “though there is a risk it could spill into 1H 2027.”
Still, the firm’s Bitcoin targets arrive with fresh scrutiny after a recent miss. In mid-October last year, with Bitcoin around $111,000, TD Cowen projected $141,000 by December; instead, Bitcoin closed the year near $88,000.
At press time, Bitcoin traded at $65,422.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
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