Standard Chartered Cuts 2026 Bitcoin Price Prediction By 50%
Standard Chartered has sharply diminished its famously bullish Bitcoin roadmap, chopping its 2026 value goal in half and acknowledging that its earlier near-term projections have been too aggressive, even because it retains an ultra-optimistic long-term view intact.
Standard Chartered Downgrades Bitcoin Price Predictions
In a notice shared on X by VanEck head of analysis Matthew Sigel, Standard Chartered argues that Bitcoin’s conventional halving cycle has been overtaken by ETF-driven flows. The financial institution writes: “With the arrival of ETF shopping for, we expect the BTC halving cycle is no longer a relevant value 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.”
The report provides that it’ll “take a break of the present all-time high ($ 126,000 on 6 October 2025) to show that; we count on this to occur in H1-2026.”
Alongside that shift in framework, the financial institution re-profiled its multi-year Bitcoin targets. According to the figures shared by Sigel, Standard Chartered has lowered its 2025 forecast from $200,000 to $100,000, its 2026 goal from $300,000 to $150,000, its 2027 projection from $400,000 to $225,000, its 2028 estimate from $500,000 to $300,000, and its 2029 prediction from $500,000 to $400,000 whereas preserving a $500,000 goal for 2030.
Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered’s head of digital belongings analysis, characterises the latest drawdown as painful however not structural. He describes the present section as “a chilly breeze,” explicitly rejecting the notion of a brand new crypto winter and noting that the magnitude of the pullback stays in keeping with corrections seen in previous bull cycles.
At the identical time, he factors out that weaker valuations for listed Bitcoin treasury corporations have curtailed their means to behave as main marginal consumers, leaving spot ETFs as the first driver of near-term positive factors.
Wall Street Giant Bernstein Agrees
The downgrade additionally lands within the context of a broader rethink on Wall Street. One day earlier, on December 8, Sigel shared a separate note from Bernstein that reached an analogous conclusion about Bitcoin’s market construction.
Bernstein wrote that “the Bitcoin cycle has damaged the 4-year sample (cycle peaking each 4 years) and is now in an elongated bull-cycle with extra sticky institutional shopping for offsetting any retail panic promoting.”
Despite an roughly 30% correction, the agency notes that “we have now seen lower than 5% outflows by way of ETFs.” On that foundation, Bernstein now strikes its 2026 Bitcoin value goal to $150,000, sees the cycle “probably peaking in 2027E at $200,000,” and retains its long-term 2033 goal at roughly $1,000,000 per BTC.
Both Standard Chartered and Bernstein are converging on the identical structural message: the halving alone not explains Bitcoin’s trajectory. ETF flows, institutional positioning and balance-sheet dynamics are actually the core variables, even when their exact value targets and timelines diverge.
At press time, Bitcoin traded at $92,686.