Customary Chartered has sharply decreased its famously bullish Bitcoin roadmap, chopping its 2026 worth goal in half and acknowledging that its earlier near-term projections have been too aggressive, even because it retains an ultra-optimistic long-term view intact.
Customary Chartered Downgrades Bitcoin Value Predictions
In a word shared on X by VanEck head of analysis Matthew Sigel, Customary Chartered argues that Bitcoin’s conventional halving cycle has been overtaken by ETF-driven flows. The financial institution writes: “With the arrival of ETF shopping for, we predict the BTC halving cycle is not a related worth driver. The logic in earlier cycles (when US ETFs didn’t exist) – i.e., costs would peak about 18 months after every halving and decline thereafter – is not legitimate, in our view.”
The report provides that it’s going to “take a break of the present all-time excessive ($ 126,000 on 6 October 2025) to show that; we anticipate this to occur in H1-2026.”
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Alongside that shift in framework, the financial institution re-profiled its multi-year Bitcoin targets. Based on the figures shared by Sigel, Customary Chartered has lowered its 2025 forecast from $200,000 to $100,000, its 2026 goal from $300,000 to $150,000, its 2027 projection from $400,000 to $225,000, its 2028 estimate from $500,000 to $300,000, and its 2029 prediction from $500,000 to $400,000 whereas preserving a $500,000 goal for 2030.
Geoff Kendrick, Customary Chartered’s head of digital property analysis, characterises the latest drawdown as painful however not structural. He describes the present section as “a chilly breeze,” explicitly rejecting the notion of a brand new crypto winter and noting that the magnitude of the pullback stays in step with corrections seen in previous bull cycles.
On the identical time, he factors out that weaker valuations for listed Bitcoin treasury firms have curtailed their potential to behave as main marginal consumers, leaving spot ETFs as the first driver of near-term positive aspects.
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Wall Avenue Large Bernstein Agrees
The downgrade additionally lands within the context of a broader rethink on Wall Avenue. At some point earlier, on December 8, Sigel shared a separate word from Bernstein that reached an analogous conclusion about Bitcoin’s market construction.
Bernstein wrote that “the Bitcoin cycle has damaged the 4-year sample (cycle peaking each 4 years) and is now in an elongated bull-cycle with extra sticky institutional shopping for offsetting any retail panic promoting.”
Regardless of an roughly 30% correction, the agency notes that “we now have seen lower than 5% outflows by way of ETFs.” On that foundation, Bernstein now strikes its 2026 Bitcoin worth goal to $150,000, sees the cycle “doubtlessly peaking in 2027E at $200,000,” and retains its long-term 2033 goal at roughly $1,000,000 per BTC.
Each Customary Chartered and Bernstein are converging on the identical structural message: the halving alone not explains Bitcoin’s trajectory. ETF flows, institutional positioning and balance-sheet dynamics at the moment are the core variables, even when their exact worth targets and timelines diverge.
At press time, Bitcoin traded at $92,686.
Featured picture created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
