$120,000 Is Too Low—Standard Chartered Apologizes for Low Valuation of Bitcoin

The parabolic bullish rise of Bitcoin beyond the $100,000 mark has forced Standard Chartered to quickly backtrack, acknowledging that their $120,000 forecast underestimated the explosive strength of institutional momentum. Standard Chartered Apologizes for Bitcoin Target of $120,000 Being Too Low The head of the digital asset division at Standard Chartered, Geoffrey Kendrick, made a notable revision to his bitcoin outlook on Thursday, acknowledging that the recent surge in the cryptocurrency has exceeded his expectations. With bitcoin trading above 100,000 dollars and continuing to attract investment from large-scale institutions, Kendrick believes that his previous forecasts may no longer reflect the strength of the market. He wrote in an email to clients: I apologize that my target of 120,000 USD in Q2 may be too low. Kendrick's updated outlook reflects a strong reassessment of market conditions as BTC continues its strong upward trend, recently surpassing the $100,000 mark. His previous forecast, made last month, predicted that macroeconomic changes in support and large-scale investor buying would push bitcoin to record highs by mid-year. The analyst stated at the time: "We expect these supportive factors to push BTC to a new all-time high of around $120,000 in the second quarter. We see the increase continuing throughout the summer, bringing BTC-USD closer to our year-end forecast of $200,000." The price levels that once seemed very ambitious now "seem very feasible," he said on Thursday, pointing out that changing market dynamics and increasing institutional interest are the main drivers. Kendrick commented: The main story about Bitcoin has changed once again. It is the correlation with risky assets... Then it became a way to position for reallocating strategic assets away from U.S. assets. Now it’s all about the flow. And the flow is coming in many forms. The head of the digital asset department at Standard Chartered believes that the bullish momentum is due to $5.3 billion in net inflows into U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF) over the past three weeks. He pointed out the notable activities of organizations as further confirmation of this trend, referencing the software intelligence company Microstrategy (Nasdaq: MSTR) increasing its Bitcoin holdings, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund holding a position in Blackrock's bitcoin ETF IBIT, and the Swiss National Bank purchasing shares of Microstrategy.