In brief
- Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF holdings have dropped 41% and 43% respectively from their 2025 peaks.
- Standard Chartered maintains a long-term bullish outlook despite lowering near-term forecasts.
- Institutional involvement is expected to cushion downside compared to previous crypto cycles.
Bitcoin will reclaim $100,000 and Ethereum will see $4,000 by the end of 2026—but they’ll first sink to $50,000 and $1,400 on their way there, according to a new forecast from Standard Chartered.
Geoff Kendrick, the bank’s head of digital asset research, said that although the current market has been challenging for digital assets, it’s a sign that the class is maturing and becoming more resilient.
“Near-term, we see potential for further price downside in the coming months,” he wrote in a note shared with Decrypt. “Holdings of digital asset ETFs have fallen (albeit in an orderly manner), and the average Bitcoin (BTC) ETF holding is now down around 25%.”
Total assets under management in Bitcoin ETFs peaked above $165 billion in early October, according to on-chain analytics platform CoinGlass. But that figure has since fallen 41% to $96 billion at the time of writing.
Ethereum ETFs have seen a similar drop, peaking at $23 billion in August 2025 and dropping 43% from their high to $13 billion as of Thursday morning.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin has been changing hands for $67,456 after gaining nearly 2% in the past day, according to price aggregator CoinGecko. The coin has dropped 27% in the last 30 days alone, and is 46% lower than the all-time high above $126,000 that it set in October.
Meanwhile, Ethereum was trading for $1,969 at the time of writing after having risen 2.8% in the past day. It’s still 4% lower than it was this time last week.
Users on Myriad—a prediction market platform operated by Decrypt‘s parent company, Dastan—similarly see a downward move ahead for Bitcoin, penciling in a 58% chance that the price of BTC drops to $55,000 sooner than it can rise to $84,000.
Changes to the near-term forecast haven’t altered the big picture for Standard Chartered, though.
“While we have lowered our forecasts in response to recent price declines, our constructive long-term view remains intact. We maintain our end-2030 forecasts for BTC, ETH, and Solana,” he wrote.
In recent months, the bank has argued that Bitcoin would reach $500,000, with Ethereum at $40,000 and Solana at $2,000, by the end of 2030.
Kendrick said the bank focuses on two key metrics during a crypto market drawdown: The pullback relative to the all-time high and the percentage of BTC that’s currently in profit.
“While these metrics show sharp declines, they are not as extreme as in past cycles,” he said. “We think that the involvement of institutional investors and ETFs will cushion the downside this time, leading to less extreme total declines.”
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