Standard Chartered's crypto research desk, which earlier in 2025 maintained one of the most aggressive Bitcoin forecasts on Wall Street with a $200,000 year-end target, formally cut its outlook to below $100,000 in a research note distributed to clients this week. The desk, led by veteran analyst Geoff Kendrick, cited a combination of slowing ETF inflows, hawkish Fed signaling from October's policy meeting, and weaker AI-stock momentum as the primary reasons behind the revision.
The cut takes the forecast from $200,000 by year-end to $95,000 by year-end, with a 12-month target reset to $115,000 by the end of 2026. The note re-emphasizes Standard Chartered's longer-term constructive view — the desk continues to model BTC reaching $250,000 by 2028 — but acknowledges that the near-term trajectory has materially weakened. Kendrick wrote that the conditions necessary for a sustained move higher have "not yet re-formed" and that allocators should expect range-bound to softer prices through the first quarter.
The cut is notable for its candor. Standard Chartered has been one of the most consistent bullish voices among traditional-finance institutions, with Kendrick's forecasts widely cited across institutional research squawks and used as anchor reference points by other desks. The previous targets implicitly endorsed the four-year cycle-pattern view of Bitcoin's price behavior, in which halving-driven supply tightening and post-halving demand growth combined to produce the kind of multiple expansion that past cycles delivered. The new note explicitly steps back from that framework.
"Our view is that the four-year cycle pattern may be a less reliable guide in an ETF-driven market structure than it was in earlier cycles," Kendrick wrote in the note's revised methodology section. "The marginal buyer base has changed; the demand channels have changed; and the supply mechanics, while still operative, are no longer the dominant marginal driver of price. Modeling 2025-26 with the same lens we used for 2017 or 2021 would be a methodological error." The line was widely circulated across institutional desks within hours of publication.
The view is increasingly mainstream within institutional research. JPMorgan's market strategy team published a note in early November making essentially the same point, framing the post-ETF Bitcoin market as "macro-coupled rather than cycle-driven." Citi's digital-assets group has reduced its 2026 base-case price target by similar magnitudes. Goldman's market strategy desk has begun explicitly grouping BTC alongside high-beta growth equities in its risk-asset framework rather than treating it as a separate diversifier. The cumulative effect is a Wall Street consensus that has shifted notably bearish-on-margin within a six-week window.
The implications for the broader market are mixed. Lower forecasts from prominent bulls are not, in themselves, bearish — they often coincide with bottoms when the consensus capitulates. But the speed of the consensus shift, combined with a softer ETF flow picture and growing equity-correlation behavior, points to a structurally weaker setup than the early-October highs suggested. Whether the revisions mark the bottom or merely the midpoint of a longer reset will depend largely on the equity tape, on whether ETF flows reverse cleanly through year-end, and on whether the Fed delivers the December cut that futures markets have priced.
What desks are watching most closely now is whether other prominent forecasters follow Kendrick's revisions. If the next round of forecasts from major banks lands at similar levels through year-end, Standard Chartered's cut will look like a leading indicator. If the consensus instead snaps back toward higher targets following any sign of price stabilization, the cut may end up as a contrarian signal in retrospect. Either way, the note marks the clearest acknowledgment yet that the Wall Street view of Bitcoin has fundamentally changed in the post-ETF era.