Standard Chartered Bank analyst and head of digital asset research, Geoff Kendrick, believes that Bitcoin ( BTC ) price will likely trend higher post-halving due to the leveraged position in the market lower.
Speaking to BNN Bloomberg in an interview over the weekend, Kendrick said the current market environment, with lower leverage, could push BTC 's value up towards Standard Chartered's year-end price target of 150,000 USD.
The market has lower leverage
Last week the fourth Bitcoin halving ended with the cryptocurrency market seeing millions of liquidations in short and long positions as tensions escalated in the Middle East.
BTC fell nearly $10,000 as news of Iran's attacks against Israel spread, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.
Bitcoin price fell from $71,000 to $65,000 and then to $61,000 within a day. More than 300,000 traders have gone bankrupt, with liquidations amounting to 1.8 billion USD.
That weekend plunge wiped out millions of leveraged Bitcoin positions, with April 13 alone marking the highest daily liquidations since October 2023.
Kendrick said the liquidation of leveraged positions has cleared the way for the cryptocurrency market to trend higher and it is poised to rise from its current position.
Since the market entered the leverage halving period, it was able to recover and rise to new levels.
ETF inflow drives BTC uptrend
Besides lower leveraged positions in the market, Kendrick also mentioned Capital into Spot Trading Bitcoin ETFs and positive news expected from the situation between Iran and Israel as potential catalysts. potential for BTC to trend higher.
Although Spot Bitcoin ETF Capital have now stalled, Standard Chartered analysts expect Capital to reach $50-100 billion over the next 18 to 24 months as the market matures.
Comparing the Bitcoin ETF space to Gold, Kendrick predicts that it could grow 4.3x as Capital inflows continue over time, pushing BTC to $150,000 by the end of 2024 and $200,000 by 2025.
Meanwhile, Standard Chartered predicts that BTC could reach $250,000 by 2025 if Bitcoin ETF Capital reach the Medium estimate of $75 billion.
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