"Not a cryptozyme, but a cold breeze": analyst shifts bitcoin forecast past $500,000

Standard Chartered analyst Jeff Kendrick has changed his forecast for the price of bitcoin: he still believes that the cryptocurrency will reach a price of $500,000, but now expects it to happen in 2030, not in 2028, as he previously estimated. In addition, Kendrick admitted that bitcoin will not reach $200,000 by the end of 2025, a prediction he has held for more than a year.

Kendrick is now betting that bitcoin will only rise to $100,000 by the end of this year, Barron's writes . Kendrick's position has been influenced by the weakening of the crypto market.

"The dynamics of recent weeks have been challenging, to say the least. But we believe the decline, albeit sharp, is within the bounds of what can be considered normal: a 36% drop from the October 6 high is comparable to previous pullbacks," Kendrick wrote in Barron's outline. The analyst remains optimistic about bitcoin and believes it's "not a cryptozyme, just a cold breeze right now."

According to Standard Chartered, the period of active bitcoin purchases by companies is likely to have come to an end, and further bitcoin price growth will be driven by only one factor - purchases of exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

"We still believe this [$500,000 by 2030] target is achievable: asset allocation analysis between bitcoin and gold shows that global portfolios are underweight bitcoin," Kendrick added.

On Tuesday, December 9, the largest cryptocurrency by capitalization was trading at around $92,700, but the price has also dipped below $90,000 over the past 24 hours, CoinGecko shows. And that's given the market's confidence that the U.S. Federal Reserve will cut rates on Wednesday, and such expectations usually support digital assets, Barron's notes.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor