Bitcoin (BTC 0.50%) already sprinted past $100,000 in 2025, yet there's still plenty of room for it to run for years, meaning that eager investors with just $1,000 can still make a meaningful entry. There's a critical catalyst here, specifically the world's second-largest economy preparing to unleash a flood of investment capital.

Let's investigate when these inflows might happen, and why they're likely to occur.

This country's economy could soon juice this coin

Mining, holding, buying, or selling Bitcoin has been illegal in China, along with all other cryptocurrencies, since 2021. But people still buy it. In fact, it's the country with the second-most mining power operating, after the U.S., with 21.1% of the global hashing power. And its government is estimated to hold around $20.6 billion in Bitcoin.

Separately, China is in the midst of an interesting economic issue right now. People aren't consuming enough, which could be a major drag on growth, and it could potentially also eventually lead to a deflationary spiral of its currency. To address this issue, the government is executing a swath of fiscal and monetary policies to stimulate demand in the economy, including cutting the central bank's prime interest rate, and decreasing the proportion of cash that banks are legally obligated to keep on hand.

Image source: Getty Images.

As those policies have their intended effect, people and businesses will spend more on consumption, and they'll also have more capital to invest. Traditional sinks of extra capital include assets like stocks, and, even if it's illegal, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. When paired with the ongoing process of the country's regulators reevaluating the regulations surrounding cryptocurrencies, legalized Bitcoin could enter the scene soon enough, which would make it an even more obvious recipient of excess capital.

A related and largely underappreciated point is that China's underground demand for Bitcoin is already immense.

Despite official bans, Chinese traders funneled an estimated $86.4 billion through peer-to-peer and over-the-counter (OTC) channels between July 2022 and June 2023. A large share of these transactions fall between $10,000 and $1 million in size, nearly twice the global average.

Moreover, peer-to-peer trading platforms and even brick-and-mortar crypto shops thrive in Hong Kong, effectively rendering the ban ineffective. Chinese consumers are, in many cases, more financially motivated than they are deterred by legal prohibitions, especially when their domestic stocks underperform, as investing in a forbidden asset means getting in before the herd, after which prices will be higher and returns are likely to be lower -- or so the logic goes.

That hidden demand suggests that even without formal legalization, inflows will continue. And they're only likely to grow even faster once stimulus policies put more capital in consumers' wallets.

There's no need to wait for the catalyst to invest

The Bitcoin legalization catalyst from China hasn't happened yet, and it might not happen this year or even next year, or ever. Do not count on it, and don't wait for it. This is not a matter of buying the rumor and selling the news so much as it is understanding that there may be a big bonus coming at an undefined point in the future, in addition to the tailwind that's already in operation.

As investors in China are obviously demanding Bitcoin, and miners there are obviously able to keep producing more supply without getting shut down despite illegality, it's likely that there will be significant inflows from the country even if regulations don't change. After all, people are being encouraged to invest and to spend, and the suite of new stimulus policies are making sure they have the ability to do so. And when putting all of these facts together, it's quite a bullish setup for Bitcoin.

Expect the trend of newly wealthier investors from China buying Bitcoin to continue for at least a few years. If you have $1,000 to commit right now, it's worth securing some coins to benefit from the impact of the stimulus policies while it's still on the earlier side.