‘Winter Is Over’: Standard Chartered Calls Crypto Bottom as Bitcoin Recovers From $60K Fall

The crypto market has been hit hard since then Bitcoin reached an all-time high eight months ago, although it is likely past its trough, according to Geoff Kendrick of Standard Chartered.

The investment bank’s global head of digital asset research said in a note on Friday that Bitcoin’s recent drop to nearly $59,000 marked the most frigid conditions of the crypto winter — representing a 53% drop from October’s peak price of $126,000.

“I think we have now seen the bottom of crypto asset prices,” he wrote. “Winter is over.”

Friday’s developments provide the catalyst for a crypto market that has proven tepid in recent months, Kendrick added, pointing to signs of a possible US-Iran peace deal ahead of next week’s G7 summit, as well as SpaceX’s historic $1.75 trillion IPO.

Since the war in the Middle East began choking global oil supplies, rising energy costs have driven up US Treasury yields, punishing risky assets like crypto as guaranteed. Risk-free sovereign debt has become relatively attractive, Kendrick noted.

The investment bank issued a $100,000 price target for Bitcoin in February.

Bitcoin recently changed hands above $64,000, up 5% in the past week Coin gecko. During the same period, the total value of all cryptocurrencies tracked by the crypto data aggregator had fallen from $2.29 trillion to $2.277 trillion.

Although President Trump has claimed several times that the US and Iran are close to reaching an agreement that would end the three-month conflict, he announced Thursday that a breakthrough could come this weekend, per AP News.

“If it’s true, [it] could spell the end of higher oil prices,” Kendrick wrote.

West Texas Intermediate crude fell 1.5% to $86 a barrel on Friday, according to Trading Economics. On Myriad, a prediction market from Declutter‘s parent company Dastan, traders gained confidence in it that the US oil benchmark will fall to $55, before $120.

In recent weeks, exchange-traded funds that track Bitcoin have seen some of the sharpest selling “since inception,” Kendrick wrote. Wall Street vehicles have posted net outflows of roughly $5 billion since mid-May, according to Wall Street MintGlass.

Kendrick argued that some of the sales are likely to come from investors looking to piggyback on Elon Musk’s rocket company, “by selling to free up cash for the IPO.”

Still, Kendrick wrote that his call requires some signs of confirmation. That includes net inflows for Bitcoin ETFs on Friday, a continued decline in oil prices and an announcement of Strategy Monday that the Bitcoin buying company expanded its holdings.