Standard Chartered: crypto winter over, Bitcoin price to $100.000

The crypto winter is over. That is the view of Geoffrey Kendrick, analyst at Standard Chartered, who leaves his year-end targets for Bitcoin and Ethereum unchanged. According to Kendrick, the recent dip to around $59K likely marks the low point of the current cycle. At the time of writing, Bitcoin is at $63.7K, up 0.5% in the past 24 hours.

Bitcoin is available at OKX and Bybit.

Kendrick points to three factors behind the selling wave

Kendrick explains what caused the recent downturn. First, there were significant outflows from spot Bitcoin ETFs, which put considerable pressure on the market in recent weeks. For example, money flowed out of Bitcoin ETFs for five consecutive days, and earlier $214 million had already left BTC ETFs and $35 million from ETH ETFs.

Additionally, liquidity pressure surrounding the SpaceX IPO played a role. That subscription attracted enormous amounts of capital, temporarily sucking money out of the crypto market. Finally, Kendrick sees diminishing macroeconomic stress as a third factor. Now that pressure is easing, he expects buyers to return and that ETF inflows will further confirm the recovery.

Ethereum could outperform Bitcoin in the short term

Kendrick maintains his price target of $100.000 for the Bitcoin price and $4.000 for Ethereum by the end of 2026. Notably, he says that Ethereum could perform better than Bitcoin in the short term. In this, he diverges from analysts like Galaxy, who possibly estimate the Bitcoin floor even lower.

Whether the bottom is truly behind us remains to be proven by the market. Kendrick expects renewed inflows into Bitcoin ETFs to serve as confirmation. The Bitcoin price is still waiting for a breakout above $65.000 to strengthen the recovery.