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Standard Chartered Flags Market Turbulence Ahead
The bank revised its outlook, projecting that BTC could decline to approximately $50,000 in the months ahead, while Ether may find a floor near $1,400.
“I think we are going to see more pain and a final capitulation period for digital asset prices in the next few months. The macro backdrop is unlikely to provide support until we near [Kevin] Warsh taking over at the Fed,” Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered’s head of digital assets research, said in a recent research report.
“On the downside, I think this will see BTC to $50,000 or just below, ETH to $1,400. They will be buy levels, for end year forecasts of $100,000 BTC and $4,000 ETH.”
The $100,000 Bitcoin projection marks another reduction from the bank’s previous $150,000 target. In December, Kendrick had already lowered the forecast from an earlier estimate of $300,000. Meanwhile, the Ether outlook was revised to $4,000, down from the prior $7,500 prediction.



 Kendrick also revised down his end-of-2026 price targets across several major cryptocurrencies, reducing his Solana forecast to $135 from $250, XRP to $2.80 from $8.00, BNB to $1,050 from $1,755, and Avalanche to $18 from $100.
“These are mostly mark-to-market forecast changes to bring relative movements in line with BTC and ETH,” he opined.
Kendrick attributed the softer outlook in part to trends among exchange-traded fund investors. Bitcoin ETF holdings have decreased in recent months, with the average investor now facing unrealized losses after entering at an estimated average price of around $90,000, he said.
According to Kendrick’s estimates, ETF positions have contracted by nearly 100,000 BTC from their October 2025 peak. He added that investors may be more inclined to reduce exposure rather than accumulate during near-term price weakness.
Broader macroeconomic factors are also pressuring market sentiment. Kendrick pointed out that although recent U.S. economic indicators suggest some softening, expectations that the Federal Reserve will hold rates steady until Kevin Warsh’s first Federal Open Market Committee meeting as chair in mid-June are seen as constraining near-term momentum for risk assets.
Standard Chartered Maintains Long-Term Bullish Outlook
Despite anticipating further market stress in the near-term, the bank said the current correction remains less severe than previous downturns. At its lowest point in early February, Bitcoin had fallen roughly 50% from its October 2025 peak, while approximately half of the circulating supply remained in profit — declines viewed as significant but still milder than those seen in earlier cycles.
Importantly, the present cycle has not been accompanied by the failure of major crypto platforms, in contrast to the implosions of Terra/Luna and FTX in 2022. Kendrick said this points to a more mature and resilient market structure as institutional participation grows.
The analyst kept his longer-term outlook intact, reiterating end-2030 price targets of $500,000 for Bitcoin, $40,000 for Ether, and $2,000 for Solana, citing continued confidence in underlying adoption trends and structural growth drivers.
Bitcoin was trading at $65,638 at press time, down roughly 2.8% in the past day, per CoinGecko. The apex crypto has shed approximately 30% over the last 30 days alone and is 48% below its lifetime high of above $126,000 set in October 2025.
Meanwhile, Ether was valued at $1,926 at the time of writing after having plunged 21.1% in the past day.
