TD Cowen analyst Lance Vitanza expects Bitcoin to reach $132,000 in 2027. He shared that forecast — and a broader read on how institutions are approaching the asset — after attending the Bitcoin Treasuries conference in New York.
The headline number is the easy part. The more interesting claim is what Vitanza says is happening underneath it: institutional investors are no longer debating whether to own Bitcoin. They're debating how.
From a coin to a capital structure
Bitcoin is turning into a capital markets ecosystem, according to Vitanza's read. Common stock, preferreds, bonds, income products — the asset is no longer just something you buy and hold on a balance sheet. It's becoming something you build a capital structure around.
That shift shows up in how institutions evaluate it. Vitanza says they're increasingly looking at Bitcoin inside a portfolio context rather than as a standalone allocation. That's a meaningful change in framing. A standalone asset competes against cash or gold. A portfolio component competes against other portfolio components, which is a much more crowded and much more analytical fight.
Preferreds, bonds, and digital credit
Vitanza walked through Bitcoin preferreds, bonds, and dividend-paying instruments. Those are the tools treasury companies use to raise capital without dumping more common equity on the market. He also discussed how analysts are starting to evaluate digital credit — the yields attached to these instruments and the risk behind them.
The pitch for preferreds and bonds is straightforward. They let a treasury company stack more Bitcoin per share without immediately diluting common holders. The catch is that the coupon has to be paid, and it has to be paid in a bear market too. That's where the quality of the operating business starts to matter.
Which treasury companies survive a downturn
Vitanza named Strive, Metaplanet, and Nakamoto as examples of treasury companies where the underlying operating business matters. The implication is blunt: when credit tightens, the companies with real revenue and real operations have options that pure holding vehicles don't.
This is the part of the Bitcoin treasury trade that gets glossed over. Accumulating coins is the easy part in a bull market. Servicing debt, refinancing preferreds, and keeping the common equity story intact through a drawdown is the hard part.
Vitanza's view is that well-run treasury companies could outperform Bitcoin itself. Not because they'll hold more coins, but because they can issue paper against those coins at terms that make the math work.
The MSCI question
Vitanza also addressed whether removal from MSCI indexes could hurt Bitcoin treasury companies. Index inclusion matters for passive flows, and losing it would cut off a channel of automatic demand. He didn't treat it as a death sentence, but it's a live risk that treasury boards are clearly thinking about.
There's a second, quieter issue he raised: blockchain surveillance, front-running, and trust in Bitcoin prices. Those are plumbing questions, not narrative ones. But they're the kind of plumbing questions that become narrative problems if the answer turns out to be wrong.
What to watch
The $132,000 call for 2027 is a forecast, not a fact, and TD Cowen's view will be tested against how the treasury company cohort handles its next refinancing window. The near-term signal isn't the price. It's whether the preferred and bond issuance that Vitanza described keeps getting done on terms that don't hollow out common shareholders.
That's the test that matters for the thesis that treasury companies can outrun the asset they hold.
