Standard Chartered Slashes Bitcoin Forecasts, Cites ETF Shift

Standard Chartered’s updated Bitcoin roadmap represents a significant pullback in expectations. According to the figures shared, the bank has lowered its 2025 year-end forecast from $200,000 to $100,000. The cuts grow deeper for subsequent years: the 2026 target was halved from $300,000 to $150,000, the 2027 projection was reduced from $400,000 to $225,000, and the 2028 estimate dropped from $500,000 to $300,000. Only the long-term outlook remains steadfast, with a 2029 prediction of $400,000 (down from $500,000) and the $500,000 target for 2030 left intact.

Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered’s head of digital assets research, framed the recent market correction as a painful but typical phase within a bull cycle, explicitly rejecting the idea of a new ‘crypto winter.’ He described it as ‘a cold breeze,’ noting the pullback’s magnitude is consistent with past cycles. However, Kendrick highlighted a critical structural change: weaker valuations for publicly listed Bitcoin treasury companies have diminished their role as major marginal buyers. This vacuum leaves spot Bitcoin ETFs as the undisputed primary driver of near-term price gains, a reality now central to the bank’s modeling.

The intellectual foundation for Standard Chartered’s downgrade is a declared break from Bitcoin’s historical price model. The bank’s report, as cited by Matthew Sigel, states unequivocally: ‘With the advent of ETF buying, we think the BTC halving cycle is no longer a relevant price driver.’ This directly challenges the long-held logic that prices would peak roughly 18 months after each halving event—a pattern established in eras ‘when US ETFs did not exist.’

This represents a paradigm shift in TradFi analysis of Bitcoin. The report suggests that to confirm this new framework, Bitcoin must break its current all-time high of approximately $126,000, which Standard Chartered expects to occur in the first half of 2026. The implication is clear: the scheduled reduction in Bitcoin’s new supply issuance (the halving) is now a secondary factor, overshadowed by the demand shock from regulated, institutional-grade investment vehicles like spot ETFs.

Standard Chartered’s revision is not an isolated event but part of a broader recalibration on Wall Street. Just one day prior, Bernstein analysts reached a strikingly similar conclusion, as also shared by Matthew Sigel. Bernstein noted that ‘the Bitcoin cycle has broken the 4-year pattern’ and is now in an ‘elongated bull-cycle with more sticky institutional buying offsetting any retail panic selling.’

The data underpinning this view is telling. Bernstein highlighted that despite a roughly 30% market correction, spot Bitcoin ETFs experienced ‘less than 5% outflows.’ This resilience demonstrates the ‘stickiness’ of institutional capital. Consequently, Bernstein adjusted its own targets, moving its 2026 Bitcoin price forecast to $150,000—identical to Standard Chartered’s new target—and sees the cycle potentially peaking in 2027 at $200,000. Like its peer, Bernstein maintains an ultra-bullish long-term view, with a target of roughly $1,000,000 per BTC by 2033.

The convergence of analysis from Standard Chartered and Bernstein sends a powerful structural message. While their precise timelines and peak price estimates may differ, both institutions agree that ETF flows, institutional positioning, and corporate balance-sheet dynamics have supplanted the halving as the core variables explaining Bitcoin’s trajectory. The market is being reshaped not by miner economics, but by portfolio allocation decisions within the traditional financial system.

The collective analysis points to a new regime for Bitcoin. The primary engine is now the net inflows—or outflows—from U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs, which provide a transparent, daily gauge of institutional and accredited investor demand. This marks a decisive move away from a market historically driven by retail sentiment, speculative narratives around the halving, and the purchasing power of crypto-native corporations.

As of the latest data, with Bitcoin trading around $92,686, the market is digesting this new analytical framework. The recent correction, viewed by analysts like Kendrick as a routine ‘cold breeze,’ is seen as a test of this new structure. The minimal ETF outflows during the sell-off, as noted by Bernstein, provide early validation for the thesis that institutional capital is more patient and strategic than the retail flows of past cycles. The path forward for Bitcoin’s price, according to this emerging Wall Street consensus, will be charted not by the countdown to a halving, but by the quarterly reports of asset managers and the balance sheets of mainstream corporations.