In brief
- British multinational bank Standard Chartered has slashed its 2025 Bitcoin price forecast by half to $100,000, and pushed its $500,000 long-term target to 2030.
- Aggressive corporate Bitcoin buying by entities like MicroStrategy has "run its course," the bank asserts.
- Quarterly ETF inflows have plummeted to 50,000 BTC, the lowest level since the funds' launch.
With Bitcoin’s uptrend coming to a halt after a worsening fourth quarter performance, British multinational bank and wealth management firm Standard Chartered has significantly reduced its multi-year price targets for the top crypto.
The bank now forecasts that Bitcoin will reach $100,000 by the end of 2025, down from a previous target of $200,000, according to a Tuesday report. While its long-term outlook remains at $500,000, the timeline has been pushed back from 2028 to 2030.
Bitcoin is currently stuck in a tight range with no catalysts to push it higher. The top crypto is trading at $90,600, down 1.3% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data.
Bitcoin's declining price outlook
The bank’s downgrade stems from a recalibration of demand expectations, with Standard Chartered analyst Geoffrey Kendrick citing the end of a major demand source and a slower-than-expected pace of institutional adoption via exchange-traded funds as prompting the recalibration.
Kendrick asserts that aggressive corporate buying by digital asset treasuries like MicroStrategy has “run its course,” adding that “future Bitcoin price increases will effectively be driven by one leg only – ETF buying.”
As a result, the market is now reliant on periodic ETF inflows—which have slowed dramatically, with the current quarterly inflow of 50,000 BTC marking the lowest since U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs launched.
Compared to the 450,000 BTC purchased per quarter in late 2024 from both ETFs and DATs, the number has declined sharply.
Additionally, the report highlights political pressure on the Federal Reserve, which is influencing the risk-on asset class.
While investors are bullish on an expected quarter-point rate cut in tomorrow’s interest rate decision, the outlook is largely dependent on the Fed Chairman’s guidance for next year, experts previously told Decrypt.
The appointment of Kevin Hassett to the FOMC could encourage easier monetary policy, potentially driving investors toward “hard” assets like Bitcoin as a hedge. On prediction market Myriad, owned by Decrypt’s parent company Dastan, a clear majority of users expect Hassett to be nominated as Fed chair before March 2026.
“This time really is different,” Kendrick wrote, explicitly rejecting old halving-cycle models. “We think crypto winters are a thing of the past.”
Mirroring the bank’s view, Myriad users have assigned just a 6% chance that the crypto sector slips into a crypto winter by the end of February 2026.
Though Bitcoin has retested $90,000 multiple times over the past two weeks, the near-term outlook largely hinges on the outcome of Wednesday’s FOMC meeting, analysts previously told Decrypt.