Standard Chartered still sees bitcoin hitting $150,000 in 2026
The firm expects bitcoin to hit a new all-time high in the first half of the year, and predicts the asset will hit $500,000 in 2030.
The administration’s probe into Fed Chair Jerome Powell, which sent the price of precious metals soaring, didn’t do the same for digital gold. After hitting nearly $93,000 on Sunday night, bitcoin was around $90,000 on Monday morning, a level it’s been stuck at for the past few days.
Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered’s global head of digital assets research, still anticipates bitcoin to hit $150,000 in 2026, he wrote in a January 12 note, after halving his projection last month.
“We expect CLARITY Act passage, along with solid US equity-market performance, to push BTC to a fresh all-time high in H1, defying fears of further price declines at this stage of the bitcoin ‘halving’ cycle,” Kendrick wrote.
Forecasts for 2027, 2028, 2029, and 2030 are expected to reach $225,000, $300,000, $400,000, and $500,000, respectively. Previously, Standard Chartered expected bitcoin to hit the half-million mark in 2029.
Kendrick noted that “weaker-than-expected bitcoin performance has dampened prospects for all digital assets against the USD given Bitcoin’s continued dominance of the sector.”
Meanwhile, bitcoin ETFs recorded $681 million in outflows last week, according to SoSoValue, a headwind for bitcoin’s price.
The bleeding out continued “despite elevated trading volumes of $19.5 billion, signaling active repositioning rather than disengagement,” said Timothy Misir, head of research at Blockhead Research Network.
Misir added that from a market structure perspective, the focus is on bitcoin regaining the $95,000 level, “where overhead supply and dealer positioning intersect.”
“Failure to do so likely keeps the price range-bound. A clean break, however, could unlock reflexive upside given the now-lighter positioning and improving options dynamics,” Misir said.
