Standard chartered, the multinational banking giant, is next in the news today has significantly revised its price forecast for Bitcoin. In fact, it has dramatically halved the 2025 projection.
This revision comes on the back of BTC’s recent troubles on the price charts, following a sensational performance in the last quarter of 2024.
Standard Chartered’s Bitcoin Prediction
The bank now believes Bitcoin will make it $100,000 by the end of 2025- A sharp decline from the previous target of $200,000. Additional, the long term forecast of $500,000 has been postponed, with the bank moving the timeline from 2028 to 2030.
This could be a sign that analysts are now looking at BTC’s short- and long-term objectives with caution.
With Bitcoin [BTC] trade close by $90,000 at the time of writing, the crypto is now stuck in a tight trading band. Some analysts are even taking notice a scarcity of immediate catalysts powerful enough to push the price significantly higher.
Institutional buying does not meet high expectations
The main driver behind this downward adjustment is according to analyst Standard Chartered Geoffrey Kendrick, is a fundamental reassessment of the projected demand sources that were expected to propel Bitcoin to record highs.
Kendrick highlighted two key forces driving the recalibration.
The first is the depletion of corporate finances. The intense wave of corporate Bitcoin accumulation that defined 2024, led mainly by Strategy, has largely run its course. This buying frenzy once acted as a powerful price floor for Bitcoin. However, as these government bonds pause or slow their purchases, a crucial source of market support has disappeared.
Second is the sharp slowdown in ETF inflows. While Spot Bitcoin ETFs were expected to drive continued institutional demand, their adoption has been significantly slower than initial analyst projections.
Capital flow into these vehicles has cooled and is well below the aggressive inflow models predicted at launch.
Together, these factors imply that two of the strongest structural demand drivers for Bitcoin are no longer operating at full strength. This has forced analysts to reassess expectations for near-term price momentum.
What do datasets tell us?
The aforementioned delay is clearly visible when looking at the data sets as well. For example – The quarterly inflows into Bitcoin ETFs are only approx 50,000 coins now.
This figure represents the weakest performance since these products launched in the US.To sit is a steep drop from almost 450,000 BTC per quarter which was bought by combined corporate bonds and ETFs at the end of 2024.
Kendrick’s analysis now suggests that future price growth will depend virtually fully focused on ETF-related purchases.
Adding an extra layer of complexity is the potential impact of Federal Reserve policy.
While investors anticipate a short-term interest rate cut, the forward guidance on monetary policy for the coming year is the most critical element.
Rejecting the traditional halving cycle
Finally, Standard Chartered’s new forecast explicitly goes away of the historical “halving cycle” models that have long been the standard for Bitcoin price analysis.
According to to Matthew Sigel,
“With the advent of ETF buying, we believe that the BTC halving cycle is no longer a relevant price driver. The logic in previous cycles (when US ETFs did not exist) – that is, prices peaked about 18 months after each halving and then fell – is no longer valid in our view.”
Sigel added,
“However, it will take a break from the current all-time high ($126,000 on October 6, 2025) to prove that; we expect this to happen in the first half of 2026.”
According to Kendrick, the historical boom-and-bust patterns no longer apply to today’s maturing market. Severe recessions, the so-called “crypto winters,” could be obsolete, he added.
Final thoughts
- The bank now sees ETF inflows, and not corporate bond inflows, as the only meaningful driver of BTC’s next move.
- Despite the revised forecast, Standard Chartered still rejects the classic boom-and-bust halving cycle model.