Standard Chartered Lowers Bitcoin Year-End Target to $100K Amid Crypto Sell-Off

Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick has lowered their year-end targets for Bitcoin, predicting that it will reach $100,000 instead of $200,000. The analyst declared that he is still bullish on the flagship crypto, while indicating that the recent crypto crash is a short-term decline rather than a prolonged bear market.

Standard Chartered Predicts Bitcoin To Reach $100k By Year-End

In a Tuesday note to clients, the Standard Chartered analyst admitted that the flagship crypto is unlikely to reach $200,000 by the end of the year and instead, now expects it to hit $100,000 by year-end. Kendrick remains bullish on BTC in the long-term, describing the recent sell-off as “not a crypto winter, just a cold breeze.”

As CoinGape reported, Standard Chartered had earlier this year reiterated its Bitcoin prediction of $200,000 by year-end. The flagship crypto then went on to hit a new all-time high of around $126,000 in October. However, it has been on a decline since then, crashing below the psychological $ 100,000 level in November, prompting a reduction in the bank’s year-end target.

However, Kendrick has maintained the long-term BTC target of $500,000, though he expects it to happen in 2030 rather than 2028. Meanwhile, the analyst commented on the current price action. The bank believes this target is attainable, noting that “portfolio optimization between Bitcoin and gold continues to show that global portfolios are underweight Bitcoin.”

Meanwhile, the Standard Chartered analyst described the recent Bitcoin price action as challenging but said that the decline falls within normal expectations as the 36% drop from the current all-time high is similar in scale to previous drawdowns. Furthermore, Kendrick noted that purchases by crypto treasury companies are likely over, and that ETFs will be the ones solely driving future price increases.

However, that might not be the case as treasury companies like Michael Saylor’s Strategy and Metaplanet continue to accumulate more BTC. As CoinGape reported yesterday, Strategy announced that it acquired 10,624 BTC for $963 million last week, bringing its total holdings to 660,624 BTC.

BTC’s Four-Year Cycle May Be Over

During a Fox Business interview, Ark Invest’s CEO, Cathie Wood, stated that they believe that the Bitcoin 4-year cycle will be disrupted. She explained that the flagship crypto historically dropped 75% to 90% in its early days. However, its volatility has fallen, and the Ark Invest CEO opined that the entry of institutional investors will prevent such historical declines.

Cathie Wood added that the Bitcoin low might have occurred a couple of weeks ago, with the bottom possibly in. As CoinGape reported, Bernstein analysts also declared the 4-year cycle for BTC dead and predicted that the flagship crypto could reach $1 million in the long term.

Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao also opined today that the 4-year cycle may be over. In line with this, he stated that Bitcoin may be entering into a “supercycle,” which would lead to higher prices for the flagship crypto.