In brief
- Bitcoin was largely trading sideways this month.
- But BTC has regained ground and crypto ETFs generating large inflows.
- Standard Chartered said American investors are reallocating their positions into the asset.
Bitcoin will hit an all-time high of $120,000 this quarter and reach $200,000 by the end of the year as investors increasingly pull money from U.S. assets, and based on other indicators, an analyst at Standard Chartered said in a note Monday.
The bank’s Global Head of Digital Assets Research Geoffrey Kendrick highlighted rising yields–which have correlated with past Bitcoin price jumps–accumulation of Bitcoin by whales, and the past week’s ETF flows suggesting “safe-haven reallocation from gold to BTC” as signals for a price jump, reiterating his bullish forecasts of recent months.
“U.S.-based investors may be seeking non-U.S. assets” and as a result, could plug more cash into the cryptocurrency, Kendrick wrote, citing in part “time-of-day” analysis. He added: “We expect a strategic asset reallocation away from U.S. assets to trigger the next sharp upswing in Bitcoin in the coming months.”
Kendrick predicted late last year that BTC would reach $200,000 by the end of 2025 and repeated his forecast two months ago, even as Bitcoin’s price sagged from an all-time high near $109,000 earlier in the year.
Bitcoin started climbing a week ago to its current levels as investors grew optimistic that U.S. President Donald Trump would retreat from his trade tariffs that are threatening to cripple the global economy.
Bitcoin was recently trading at $94,707 per coin, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko, after jumping nearly 9% over a seven-day period. Last week, investors pumped more than $3.4 billion into crypto funds, with 93% of that total Bitcoin-focused.
Kendrick also noted that “past price action in BTC, where sharp rises have been followed by months of sideways prices, suggests that timing such upswings is crucial—even for an asset that has risen dramatically in the past few years,” the note continued.
Bitcoin has in the past—albeit briefly—been treated as a safe-haven asset by investors. But a lot of the time, it has moved in line with “risk-on” investments like tech stocks.
“We see gains continuing through the summer, taking BTC-USD towards our year-end forecast of 200,000,” Kendrick wrote.
Edited by James Rubin
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