Standard Chartered Reaffirms $100,000 Bitcoin Price Target

Bitcoin News

Standard Chartered has reaffirmed a year-end 2026 price target of $100,000 for Bitcoin (BTC), holding to a bullish stance even as the asset trades well below that mark. In a note to investors, the bank's global head of digital assets research, Geoffrey Kendrick, argued that recent weakness reflects a communication problem rather than any structural deterioration in the market. The forecast lands at a moment of visible caution across Bitcoin markets, with some analysts warning of a slide beneath $60,000. Standard Chartered's view is that the pullback is a buying opportunity, not the start of a deeper unwind, and that Bitcoin can reclaim six figures.

At the center of the call is a blunt assessment: the bank describes Bitcoin as a “screaming buy” around the $64,000 level where it currently changes hands. Kendrick's team contends that market fear tied to recent selling by Strategy, the largest corporate holder of the asset, has been overpriced. The reasoning is that the pressure stems from how one company is managing its balance sheet, not from any weakening of Bitcoin's underlying demand. For Standard Chartered, that distinction matters, because it implies the current discount is temporary and driven by sentiment rather than a fundamental repricing — a view that runs counter to those bracing for a bear market.

Strategy sits at the heart of the thesis. The firm holds 843,775 BTC, more than 4% of the 21 million coins that will ever exist, making its treasury decisions a market event in their own right. Kendrick wrote that the company appears to be pivoting away from its long-standing “never sell Bitcoin” mantra toward a more complex approach. How clearly management communicates that shift, he argued, will determine how quickly pressure on the price lifts. The concern is not that Strategy is distressed, but that a change in a load-bearing narrative has unsettled investors who had priced in a permanent holder well below any all-time high.

The mechanism behind the strain is Strategy's mNAV, its enterprise value divided by the value of its Bitcoin holdings. Between 2020 and mid-2025 that ratio traded above 1.0, letting the company issue shares, buy more Bitcoin, and grow value faster than the dilution it created. With mNAV now near 1.0, that arithmetic no longer works cleanly. Kendrick said the firm is shifting toward holding Bitcoin as backing for STRC, its perpetual preferred stock, which behaves like a credit product. The “never sell” promise, once the load-bearing part of the model, becomes a constraint the moment the premium that justified it disappears.

STRC is where the stress became visible. The instrument pays a 12% annual dividend, settled twice a month in cash, with its rate reset monthly to keep the security near its $100 par value. It carries roughly $10 billion in notional outstanding. A negative feedback loop took hold after STRC broke from par, hitting an intraday low of $71.25 on June 26 following a June 1 disclosure that Strategy had sold 32 BTC the prior week. The security has since recovered toward $90. The dedicated USD reserve for STRC dividends stands at $2.55 billion, equal to about 17.4 months of coverage, which the bank reads as a cushion.

To ease the loop, Strategy has announced a monetization program allowing occasional Bitcoin sales, including up to $1.25 billion in proceeds earmarked for the reserve, a step the bank believes should push the over-collateralized STRC back toward $100. Standard Chartered's forecasts, however, warrant caution. The bank had earlier floated a 2024 target as high as $150,000 and a $250,000 cycle peak for 2025, later trimming its outlook to $150,000 and then $100,000 as risk appetite cooled, spot ETF outflows persisted, and expectations for Federal Reserve rate cuts faded. The revised figure reflects a more sober macro backdrop.

Our proprietary 42-indicator composite S/R scoring engine frames the near-term battlefield with Bitcoin trading near $63,880. The engine rates the $63,145 support at 80/100, its strongest reading, on the confluence of the previous daily close and a Fibonacci 0.214 retracement, while overhead resistance at $66,578 scores 74/100, driven by the R3 pivot and the upper Bollinger Band. Derivatives read constructively but crowded: funding sits at a mildly positive 0.0068%, open interest holds near $12.5 billion, and a long/short account ratio of 1.38 shows 58% of accounts long. With RSI at 53 and a bullish MACD, yet a Fear & Greed print of 23 (Extreme Fear), a decisive break above $64,756 opens the path higher; losing $63,145 invalidates the bounce and exposes $57,800.