Standard Chartered sees bitcoin falling to $50,000, ether to $1,400 before rebound

Standard Chartered has again cut its near-term crypto outlook, warning that digital asset prices could fall further in the coming months before recovering later this year.

“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,” Geoffrey Kendrick, Standard Chartered’s head of digital assets research, said in an email to The Block while sharing a new report on Thursday. “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 target is a further downgrade from $150,000. Last December, Kendrick had already cut that target from $300,000. The $4,000 ether forecast is down from $7,500.

Kendrick has also lowered his end-2026 forecasts for Solana 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 said.

The further target price cuts come after what Kendrick described as a “challenging” period for crypto prices. He expects the asset class to remain under pressure in the short term but stressed that the broader long-term outlook remains intact.

Near-term capitulation expected

A key reason for the weaker outlook is the behaviour of exchange-traded fund investors. Bitcoin ETF holdings have declined in recent months, with the average buyer now sitting on unrealized losses after purchasing near an average price of about $90,000, Kendrick noted.

He estimates that ETF holdings have fallen by nearly 100,000 BTC since their October 2025 peak and believes investors are more likely to sell than buy the dip in the near term.

Macro conditions are also weighing on sentiment. Recent U.S. economic data suggests a mixed outlook at a time when markets do not expect interest rate cuts until after a potential leadership change at the Federal Reserve in June, Kendrick said. That backdrop could make it harder for crypto to attract new inflows in the coming months, he added.

Despite the bearish short-term view, Kendrick emphasized that the current downturn appears less severe than previous crypto cycles. The absence of major platform collapses — unlike the Terra/Luna and FTX failures in 2022 — suggests the market is becoming more resilient as institutional participation grows, according to Kendrick.

“Once the lows have been reached, we expect the asset class to recover for the rest of 2026,” Kendrick said. “Other digital assets are likely to broadly follow the majors; we adjust our forecasts for them accordingly.”

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