Geoffrey Kendrick, head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered, said the Bitcoin market is approaching a bottom. Kendrick argued that spot ETF buying has remained more resilient than he expected and that Strategy could buy far more than the amount it sold last week.
In February, Kendrick had predicted that Bitcoin could fall to $50,000. He now says the market is in a “buying zone.” At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $63,000, having lost 22 percent of its value over the past month.
In a note dated February 12, Kendrick warned of a “painful and final capitulation” for digital assets, lowering his short-term Bitcoin target to $50,000 and his Ethereum target to $1,400.
The key factor behind his change in view is the shift in spot Bitcoin ETF behavior. In February, Kendrick believed that sharp selling from ETFs could create significant downside risk. That scenario did not play out. ETF holdings rose from 682,000 Bitcoin at the time to a peak, then fell back to around 674,000 Bitcoin. In other words, the net change over that period was almost zero. Kendrick interpreted this as follows: “This shows me that ETF holdings are structurally stronger than I feared in February.”
According to the analyst, this is not the only thing that has changed. The broader market behavior is also notable. Bitcoin has clearly diverged from equities this year in terms of correlation. This suggests that most open long positions were already liquidated during previous waves of volatility, meaning potential downside pressure may now be more limited.
The Strategy Factor
The direct trigger behind the weekly selling pressure was Strategy. The company sold 32 Bitcoin last week. Kendrick described the timing as “unfortunate” and acknowledged that the move played directly into the hands of Bitcoin skeptics.
Kendrick’s reading, based on historical precedent, is as follows: Strategy last sold Bitcoin on December 22, 2022, when it offloaded 704 BTC for tax optimization purposes. Just two days later, it bought back 810 BTC. The analyst thinks the buyback could be much larger this time, with the possibility of a purchase of around 320 Bitcoin, or 10 times the amount sold, or around 3,200 Bitcoin, equal to 100 times the sale.
According to Kendrick, such a purchase would be a strong signal confirming the bottom.
This week, roughly $1.5 billion in liquidations took place in the futures market. Kendrick compared this figure with the liquidation waves seen between January 29-31 and February 3-6, noting that they were similar in size. In other words, this was not an extraordinary development.
The analyst also admits that there is still a lasting risk below $60,000. However, the current picture makes that risk look relatively limited. Bitcoin’s low correlation with equity markets since the beginning of the year suggests that opportunistic leveraged positions have largely been cleared out.
The note ends with the following sentence: “There are a lot of ‘ifs’ in the above, so rather than trying to call the bottom with certainty, an accumulation strategy makes more sense.”
Year-End Targets Remain Unchanged
Kendrick is maintaining his targets of $100,000 for Bitcoin and $4,000 for ETH. Last month, he compared ETH’s price action to Amazon’s stock performance during the dot-com era. At the time, Standard Chartered analysts also argued that on-chain metrics would eventually be reflected in price.
In his note to clients, Kendrick summarized this week with the following words: “This has been a tough week for crypto; there is no other way to say it. But when we look back from a point where BTC is at $100,000 and ETH is at $4,000 by the end of 2026, I think we will say this was the buying zone everyone had been waiting for.”
