Bitcoin – Standard Chartered’s revised projection and why THIS is ‘no longer a price driver’

Normal Chartered, the multinational banking large, is within the information in the present day after it considerably revised its worth forecast for Bitcoin. Actually, it dramatically lower its 2025 projection in half.

This revision comes on the again of BTC’s latest struggles on the worth charts, following an eye-opening efficiency within the remaining quarter of 2024.

Normal Chartered’s Bitcoin prediction

The financial institution now believes that Bitcoin will attain $100,000 by the shut of 2025- A  steep discount from its earlier goal of $200,000. Moreover, the long-term forecast of $500,000 has been delayed, with the financial institution shifting the timeline from 2028 to 2030.

This can be an indication of analysts now BTC’s quick and long-term targets by the prism of warning. 

With Bitcoin [BTC] buying and selling close to $90,000 at press time, the crypto is now caught in a good buying and selling band. Actually, some analysts are additionally noting a shortage of instant catalysts highly effective sufficient to push the worth considerably larger.

Institutional shopping for fails to satisfy excessive expectations

The first driver behind this downward adjustment, in response to Normal Chartered analyst Geoffrey Kendrick, is a basic reassessment of the anticipated demand sources that had been projected to propel Bitcoin to document highs.

Kendrick highlighted two main forces driving the recalibration.

First is company treasury exhaustion – The extreme wave of company Bitcoin accumulation that outlined 2024, led most prominently by Technique, has largely run its course. This shopping for frenzy as soon as acted as a strong worth flooring for Bitcoin. Nevertheless, with these treasuries now pausing or slowing their purchases, a crucial supply of market help has light.

Second is the sharp deceleration in ETF inflows. Whereas Spot Bitcoin ETFs had been anticipated to gas sustained institutional demand, their adoption has been meaningfully slower than early analyst projections.

The capital streaming into these autos has cooled down, falling nicely under the aggressive influx fashions forecast at launch.

Collectively, these components indicate that two of the strongest structural demand engines for Bitcoin are not firing at full energy. This has compelled analysts to reassess expectations for near-term worth momentum.

What are datasets telling us?

The aforementioned slowdown is clear when the datasets are checked out too. For example – Quarterly inflows into Bitcoin ETFs stand at solely round 50,000 cash proper now.

This determine represents the weakest efficiency since these merchandise had been launched within the U.S. It is a steep drop from the practically 450,000 BTC per quarter that was being bought by mixed company treasuries and ETFs in late 2024.

Kendrick’s evaluation now means that future worth appreciation will rely virtually totally on ETF-related shopping for.

Including one other layer of complexity is the potential influence of Federal Reserve coverage.

Whereas traders anticipate a near-term rate of interest discount, the ahead steering on financial coverage for the approaching 12 months is the extra crucial ingredient.

Rejecting the standard halving cycle

Lastly, Normal Chartered’s new forecast explicitly strikes away from the historic “halving cycle” fashions which have lengthy been the usual for Bitcoin worth evaluation.

According to Matthew Sigel,

“With the appearance of ETF shopping for, we predict the BTC halving cycle is not a related worth driver. The logic in earlier cycles (when US ETFs didn’t exist) – i.e., costs would peak about 18 months after every halving and decline thereafter – is not legitimate, in our view.”

Sigel added,

“Nevertheless, it can take a break of the present all-time excessive (USD 126,000 on 6 October 2025) to show that; we anticipate this to occur in H1-2026.”

In line with Kendrick, the historic boom-and-bust patterns are not relevant to the present, maturing market. Extreme downturns, the so-called “crypto winters,” could also be out of date, he added. 

Ultimate ideas

• The financial institution now sees ETF inflows, not company treasuries, as the one significant driver of BTC’s subsequent leg up.
• Regardless of the revised forecast, Normal Chartered nonetheless rejects the basic halving-cycle boom-and-bust mannequin.