The British multinational bank – Standard Chartered- recently upgraded its Bitcoin forecast (BTC). It now expects a year-end price of $150,000, up from $100,000. The bank also envisions Bitcoin hitting a cycle high of $250,000 next year.
After that, it is predicted that there will be a stabilization at around $200,000.
Why Did Standard Chartered Predict Bitcoin Peaking at $250,000
This optimistic revision is primarily based on a comparative analysis of gold’s performance. Specifically, after the US launched gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and the subsequent correlation between ETF inflows and Bitcoin’s price.
“If ETF inflows reach our mid-point estimate of $75 billlion, and/or if reserve managers buy BTC, we see a good chance of an overshoot to the $250,000 level at some stage in 2025,” Standard Chartered said in an investment note.
Moreover, the bank’s outlook on Ethereum (ETH) is equally promising. It anticipates that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval of an Ethereum ETF on May 23 will attract as much as $45 billion in the initial year.
Consequently, ETH’s price could soar to around $8,000 by year-end, up from its current price of approximately $3,570.
Additionally, Standard Chartered projects the ETH-to-BTC price ratio to return to the 7% level prevalent during 2021-22. Assuming Bitcoin’s price hits $200,000 by the end of 2025, this would imply an ETH price of $14,000.
Corroborating Standard Chartered’s bullish stance, Plan B’s Stock-to-Flow model also forecasts a significant rise in Bitcoin’s price. It predicts that during the 2024-2028 halving cycle, Bitcoin could escalate to as much as $500,000.
Despite these long-term bullish projections, Bitcoin’s current market behavior appears bearish. It is now testing a critical support level at $64,500. Should it break below this support, the price might plummet over 7% to the next support zone, which lies between $59,000 and $60,000.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin is down approximately 11% from its all-time high of $73,777.
Read more: Bitcoin Price Prediction 2024/2025/2030
Recent outflows from spot Bitcoin ETFs have further fueled this bearish short-term trend. Farside Investors reported a net outflow of $154.3 million on Monday. Notably, Grayscale experienced a significant outflow from GBTC, with a record $642.5 million withdrawn.