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Press Reports Put JPMorgan's First Bitcoin Assumption at 10% a Year. The 55% Volatility Matters More

NodeWitness Team 6 min read

J.P. Morgan Asset Management has given bitcoin a long-run return assumption for the first time. The figures, 10% a year with 55% volatility, come from Decrypt and Bitcoin.com News, which saw the full, registration-only report; NodeWitness could not check them against it. What JPMorgan says publicly is that bitcoin is in none of its portfolios.

Thirty-one editions in, bitcoin has a line in J.P. Morgan Asset Management's Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions. The 2027 edition, released on October 19, says the firm has put "a range on bitcoin returns" for the first time, then adds in the same sentence that it does "not yet include bitcoin in our main covariance matrices" [1]. The press release is blunter: "bitcoin is not included as an allocation" [2].

The headline numbers, 10.0% compound a year over 10 to 15 years with 55% annualized volatility, are on neither of those pages [1][2]. They come from press reports of the full report: Decrypt and Bitcoin.com News give the same set, plus a 20.9% arithmetic mean [3][4]. The full report and its matrices sit behind a registration wall on JPMorgan's site, and NodeWitness could not check the bitcoin figures against the original document.

What the LTCMAs are for

These are strategic inputs, not market calls. JPMorgan publishes return, risk and correlation assumptions for more than 200 asset classes in more than 20 base currencies, over a 10- to 15-year horizon, and says they drive its own strategic asset allocations and advisory tools [1]. The firm states they are "not designed to inform short term tactical allocation decisions" [1], and its disclaimer rules out reading them as "a promise, estimate, or guarantee of future performance"; they also ignore fees, taxes and trading costs [2].

So there is no price target here. Bitcoin.com News did its own compounding from the spot price and labeled it as its arithmetic, not the bank's [4]. That label tends to fall off when the number gets reposted.

Here is what JPMorgan does publish: U.S. large caps at 7.5% (up from 6.7%), gold at 5.5% and a 60/40 portfolio at 7.0% [2]. If the press figures hold, bitcoin's 10% sits above all three.

Why it stays out of the portfolios

JPMorgan gives its reason in the capital-flows section. The idea that currency debasement will trigger a rush into crypto is, in its words, "wide of the mark," and "the volatility and unstable correlation of assets like bitcoin (BTC) remain an obstacle to their widespread inclusion in portfolios" [1]. Its compromise is a separate, smaller covariance matrix that sets bitcoin against a subset of assets in the public markets chapter [1].

The word doing the work is "yet." Nothing in the public text commits to a date.

The numbers check out against each other

We can't open the matrix, but we can test whether the three figures in the press reports are internally consistent. They are. Converting a 20.9% arithmetic mean with 55% volatility into a compound rate under the standard lognormal approximation gives 10.05% [5]. That doesn't prove the figures are JPMorgan's. It does rule out a transcription error in the coverage.

The same formula shows where the leverage sits. Hold the 20.9% mean fixed and cut volatility from 55% to 40%, and the compound return rises to 14.8% a year [5]. That is the core of Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan's objection: he argues 55% is too high, which drags the return assumption down [3]. Bitwise runs crypto funds and has a stake in that view, as Decrypt notes [3].

Bar chart: with the same 20.9% arithmetic mean, the compound annual return falls from 20.9% at zero volatility to 19.3% at 20%, 17.3% at 30%, 14.8% at 40%, 10.0% at the 55% that press reports attribute to JPMorgan and 4.6% at 70%
NodeWitness calculation using a lognormal model and the 20.9% mean reported in coverage of JPMorgan's 2027 LTCMA. Only the 55% bar reflects the volatility press reports attribute to JPMorgan; the others are comparison scenarios.

Ten years at 55%

A 10% compound assumption sounds like a smooth road. Run the press-reported inputs through that same lognormal model and the central case multiplies capital by about 2.6 over ten years. But the odds of finishing below the starting amount come out near 24%, about one in four, and the odds of losing more than half near 11% [5]. Over a single year, the chance of a down year is about 41% [5].

Those are our numbers, not JPMorgan's, built on what the press reports, and the model is a simplification. It has no regimes, no liquidity crunches, no fat tails. Still, it is the most direct way to read a 10%/55% pair: a central estimate with a very wide spread around it.

We made the same point when we worked out how much bitcoin a retirement plan actually needs: the answer is a range, because the return assumption moves it more than anything else. A bank's assumption narrows nothing. It is one more input with its own error bars.

The benchmark it creates

A reported 10% now gives everyone a yardstick, including bitcoin treasury companies paying fixed dividends to fund purchases. Strategy's STRC preferred currently pays 12% a year [6], above the 10% press reports attribute to JPMorgan, a gap we look at in our piece on Fidelity's count of 135,979 BTC funded by perpetual preferreds. More on prices, retirement and taxes lives in our Market section.

If you are stress-testing a long-term plan, start with the retirement math that shows why the answer is a range, then read what a public pension can't promise you.

Sources

Labelled by type.

  1. J.P. Morgan Asset Management, 2027 Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions, report landing page, accessed October 23, 2026. First bitcoin range, separate matrix, "wide of the mark," "not yet include bitcoin in our main covariance matrices," scope (200+ assets, 20+ currencies) and intended use. The full report and matrices require registration. (Primary, asset manager report)
  2. J.P. Morgan Asset Management, press release on the 2027 LTCMAs, October 19, 2026. No bitcoin allocation; U.S. large cap 7.5% (from 6.7%), gold 5.5%, 60/40 at 7.0%; disclaimer. (Primary, asset manager release)
  3. Decrypt, JPMorgan Puts a Number on Bitcoin for the First Time: 10% a Year, With a Big Caveat, October 20, 2026. Bitcoin figures from the full report (10%, 20.9%, 55%), not checked by NodeWitness, and Matt Hougan's critique. (Secondary, press)
  4. Bitcoin.com News, Shiraz Jagati, Bitcoin Beats Every Stock and Bond per JPMorgan's 10-Year Forecast, October 20, 2026. Same bitcoin figures and its own labeled price arithmetic, not checked by NodeWitness. (Secondary, press)
  5. NodeWitness, own calculation, October 23, 2026. Compound = (1 + mean) / √(1 + (volatility / (1 + mean))²) − 1; probabilities from a lognormal distribution with 10.05% compound return and 43.4% annual log volatility. Reproducible in any spreadsheet. (Primary, own calculation on third-party figures)
  6. Strategy, STRC Information, accessed October 23, 2026. STRC's 12.00% annual dividend rate on its $100 stated amount, adjusted monthly. (Primary, issuer page)

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Last updated: October 23, 2026