Bitcoin's declining price outlook
The bank’s downgrade stems from a recalibration of demand expectations, with Standard Chartered analyst Geoffrey Kendrick citing the end of a major demand source and a slower-than-expected pace of institutional adoption via exchange-traded funds as prompting the recalibration.
Kendrick asserts that aggressive corporate buying by digital asset treasuries like MicroStrategy has “run its course,” adding that “future Bitcoin price increases will effectively be driven by one leg only – ETF buying.”
As a result, the market is now reliant on periodic ETF inflows—which have slowed dramatically, with the current quarterly inflow of 50,000 $BTC marking the lowest since U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs launched.
Compared to the 450,000 $BTC purchased per quarter in late 2024 from both ETFs and DATs, the number has declined sharply.
Additionally, the report highlights political pressure on the Federal Reserve, which is influencing the risk-on asset class.
While investors are bullish on an expected quarter-point rate cut in tomorrow’s interest rate decision, the outlook is largely dependent on the Fed Chairman’s guidance for next year, experts previously told Decrypt.
The appointment of Kevin Hassett to the FOMC could encourage easier monetary policy, potentially driving investors toward “hard” assets like Bitcoin as a hedge. On prediction market Myriad, owned by Decrypt’s parent company Dastan, a clear majority of users expect Hassett to be nominated as Fed chair before March 2026.
“This time really is different,” Kendrick wrote, explicitly rejecting old halving-cycle models. “We think crypto winters are a thing of the past.”
Mirroring the bank’s view, Myriad users have assigned just a 6% chance that the crypto sector slips into a crypto winter by the end of February 2026.
Though Bitcoin has retested $90,000 multiple times over the past two weeks, the near-term outlook largely hinges on the outcome of Wednesday’s FOMC meeting, analysts previously told Decrypt.
decrypt.co
