The Bitcoin price narrative has entered a new chapter. After smashing six-figure milestones, the world’s largest cryptocurrency is now the subject of a bolder thesis from mainstream finance: according to fresh research from Standard Chartered, any move under $100,000 could be brief—and may represent the last chance to buy Bitcoin below six figures before a sustained march higher. In other words, the bank implies a structural price floor is taking shape, underpinned by institutional adoption, tightening on-exchange supply, and a powerful macro liquidity backdrop.
Standard Chartered’s digital assets team, led by Geoffrey (Geoff) Kendrick, has repeatedly laid out a high-conviction path for Bitcoin this cycle, including targets well above $150,000 and a potential cycle high around $250,000. While the bank recently cautioned that a short-lived dip below $100K is “inevitable,” it framed that move as a setup for the next leg higher—not the start of a breakdown. The implication: once the BTC price regains altitude, it may never sustainably drop below $100,000 again, barring a shock of historic proportions.
In this in-depth analysis, we’ll unpack Standard Chartered’s view, explore the on-chain and macro drivers that could support a six-figure Bitcoin floor, examine risks to the thesis, and map plausible price paths from here. We’ll also connect the dots on spot Bitcoin ETF flows, long-term holder behavior, miner economics, and the evolving role of Bitcoin as a macro asset. By the end, you’ll have a clear, research-driven sense of whether the sub-$100K window is truly closing—and what that means for the months ahead.
What Standard Chartered Actually Said—and Why It Matters
From “Likely Dip” to “Higher Lows”
The headline takeaway from Standard Chartered’s recent notes is a nuanced one: a brief break below $100,000 could occur, but the bank treats it as a buy-the-dip moment within a broader uptrend. This is not a call for a new bear market. It’s a framing of market structure—a higher-low regime where liquidity flushes and leverage washouts punctuate an otherwise constructive path. Crucially, the bank has maintained a bullish year-end and cycle outlook (previously citing $150K for 2024 and up to $250K in 2025), reinforcing the idea that six figures is a new battleground for support, not resistance.
Why does this matter? Because Standard Chartered is not a crypto-native boutique. It’s a global bank with institutional reach. When its analysts describe sub-$100K moves as “last chance” opportunities, large allocators listen. That shapes flows, and flows shape order books, which in turn harden price levels into psychological floors.
Reading Between the Lines
If we read the research in context, the thesis looks like this:
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Structural demand from institutions—especially via spot Bitcoin ETFs—has created persistent bid depth.
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Supply dynamics (post-halving issuance, coins locked with long-term holders, and reduced exchange balances) keep sell-side liquidity thin.
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Macro conditions—a world awash in liquidity episodes, shifting rate expectations, and growing acceptance of digital assets—increase the probability that sharp drawdowns are short-lived rather than trend-changing.
The effect is a market that can spike lower on news or liquidations, then snap back as strategic capital steps in. That’s precisely how a floor is formed—messy in the moment, but visible in hindsight.
The Demand Engine: Why Institutional Flows Matter
Spot ETFs Are a New Baseline Buyer
The launch and continued scaling of spot Bitcoin ETFs created a transparent mechanism for traditional investors—RIAs, wirehouses, pensions, endowments—to allocate to BTC without the operational overhead of self-custody. This doesn’t just add one-time demand; it introduces systematic inflows, model-driven rebalancing, and dollar-cost averaging behaviors that help smooth volatility at key levels. As ETF ecosystems mature, distribution widens, and approved platforms add coverage, these vehicles often become baseline buyers on red days.
Diversification and Portfolio Math
Beyond ETFs, the case for Bitcoin within multi-asset portfolios has strengthened. With correlations to equities cycling and long-run Sharpe ratios looking competitive, allocators can justify a 1–5% sleeve on a risk-adjusted basis. Even marginal percentage shifts across trillions in AUM translate into billions in incremental demand. That’s how price floors form: not through a single headline, but through steady, scalable buying pressure that absorbs supply.
The Corporate and Treasury Angle
An underappreciated flywheel is corporate treasury experimentation. While not every firm will mirror the boldest balance-sheet adopters, more CFOs are considering BTC as a reserve asset in jurisdictions with supportive guidance. As accounting standards evolve and custody becomes commoditized, even modest allocations can remove material supply from circulation for long durations, tightening the free float.
The Supply Side: Shrinking Float and Post-Halving Economics
Halving + Holder Behavior = Supply Shock Risk
Every four years, the Bitcoin halving cuts miner issuance in half. This cycle’s reduction further compressed the daily amount of new BTC available for sale. Pair that with the long-term holder cohort—entities that historically distribute only into strength—and you get a backdrop where fresh supply is structurally limited. When demand steps up (ETFs, treasuries, macro funds), the marginal price must rise to clear the market.
Exchange Balances and Illiquid Supply
On-chain analytics have chronicled a secular decline in BTC held on exchanges as coins migrate to cold storage, custodians, and ETF warehousing. A larger share of supply is now illiquid, meaning it is statistically unlikely to move at current prices. Illiquid supply + steady demand is how support shelves are built. That’s why a sharp wick below $100K could be quickly retraced: depth disappears on the way down, then returns as buyers refill the book.
Miner Dynamics and the Cost Floor
Post-halving, the breakeven cost for miners tends to rise, particularly for less efficient operators. Over time, network hash rate, energy mix, and efficiency improvements influence what miners view as acceptable selling levels. With miners increasingly using hedging tools, treasury management, and forward contracts, their forced selling pressure at lower levels diminishes. That evolution supports the idea of a higher structural floor for the BTC price.
Macro Tailwinds: Liquidity, Policy, and the Search for Scarcity
A World That Rewards Scarce, Portable Assets
In an era of fiscal activism, periodic liquidity injections, and simmering currency and geopolitical risks, scarce and portable assets attract attention. For some investors, Bitcoin functions as a digital gold—a bearer asset with programmatic scarcity and global settlement. Each episode of macro stress—even if it first triggers a “sell everything” panic—often leaves behind a new cohort of allocators who want exposure on the other side.
Policy Normalization and Regulatory Clarity
While crypto regulation remains a patchwork, the trend among major markets is toward clearer rules, better market infrastructure, and more robust custody. Standard Chartered itself has moved deeper into the space, with expanding digital asset services for institutional clients, signaling that large banks expect crypto to remain a core asset class rather than a passing fad. That institutionalization can compress risk premia and support higher lows over time.
Why Sub-$100K Could Be the Last Great Bargain
The Market Structure Argument
Think about market microstructure. Each time BTC trades under a now-famous round number, new owners with lower cost bases are born. If those owners are patient capital (ETFs, treasuries, long-term holders), the float left to sell at those levels shrinks. The next time Price visits that zone, fewer coins are available, and they are in stickier hands. Eventually, the order book under $100K gets so thin that wicks are possible, but sustained trading below becomes hard.
The Psychology of Six Figures
Round numbers matter. Six figures is not just a price; it is a threshold in investors’ minds. For first-time institutional buyers constrained by policy or optics, the idea of owning an asset that has an established, stable footing above $100K may be easier to champion internally. That incremental comfort can reinforce the floor. It’s the same reflex that turned $20K, then $30K–$40K, into battlegrounds in prior cycles—only this time, the buyer base is larger, slower, and stronger.
Standard Chartered’s Framing
By characterizing a sub-$100K move as “inevitable” but short-lived, Standard Chartered is effectively saying: pay attention to time spent below, not just ticks below. A one-day or intraday undercut that gets aggressively bid can fit the thesis that the market’s real equilibrium is now north of $100K. This is why headlines about a “drop below $100K” can coexist with the idea that Bitcoin may never meaningfully live under that line again.
What Could Invalidate the $100K-Plus Floor?
Left-Tail Risks
No thesis is bulletproof. Several risks could send BTC well below $100K for longer than bulls expect:
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Regulatory shock in a major market that crimps ETF distribution or market access.
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A severe liquidity crunch (credit events, systemic banking stress) that forces indiscriminate deleveraging.
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An exchange or custody failure that undermines confidence in market plumbing.
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A rapid, persistent risk-off environment with higher real yields, denting demand for non-yielding assets.
Any of these could extend time below $100K and test the floor. The mitigant, compared to prior cycles, is the presence of institutional vehicles and professional risk frameworks that often buy weakness rather than exit the asset class entirely.
The Positioning Trap
If too many investors anchor to $100K as an unbreakable floor, the market can become one-sided. When crowds lean hard the same way, squeezes hurt more. The prudent takeaway from Standard Chartered’s messaging is not, “BTC can’t go under $100K,” but rather, “If it does, the probability of a swift reversal is higher than in past cycles.” That subtlety is the difference between complacency and the conviction to act on a plan.
See More: Bitcoin Whale From 2025 Moves $16M After 14 Years
Pathways From Here: Scenarios for the Next 6–12 Months
The Quick Undercut, Then Launch
A macro headline or leverage flush sends BTC knifing under $100K intraday. ETFs post net inflows the next session, order books refill, and price reclaims six figures with momentum. This matches Standard Chartered’s “last chance dip” framing and sets the stage for a measured run toward prior highs and beyond.
Sticky Range, Higher Lows
BTC oscillates between roughly $100K and $135K for weeks. Volatility compresses as buyers accumulate and sellers fatigue. The range resolves higher as macro tailwinds improve or ETF channels widen. This slow-burn scenario still supports the idea that time below $100K is scarce.
Risk Shock, Deeper Drawdown
A left-tail shock breaks $100K and keeps BTC pinned below for longer. Even here, a reaccumulation base can form, especially if policy responses or liquidity support arrive. The thesis isn’t that sub-$100K is impossible; it’s that sustained time below is increasingly expensive for bears as structural demand grows.
On-Chain and Derivatives Signals to Watch
Funding, Basis, and Term Structure
Watch perpetual funding rates and futures basis. If funding normalizes or flips negative during selloffs while long-dated basis holds a premium, it suggests long-horizon buyers are still in control. Persistent, highly positive funding at the lows would flash caution.
Realized Caps and Holder Cost Bases
Indicators such as realized cap, short-term holder cost basis, and long-term holder SOPR help gauge whether coins are transferring from weak to strong hands during dips. Rising illiquid supply and falling exchange balances into red days support the floor narrative.
ETF Flow and AUM
Daily spot ETF creations/redemptions and cumulative AUM growth are the cleanest proxies for “new money.” If inflows accelerate on a move under $100K, the market has a shock absorber built in.
How Traders and Long-Term Investors Might Operationalize the Thesis
For Long-Term Allocators
If you believe in the digital gold and store-of-value arc, the Standard Chartered lens argues for buying planned dips below $100K rather than chasing exuberant breakouts. The risk is missing time in the market if the price never revisits those levels with duration. A systematic DCA overlay helps neutralize timing angst.
For Active Participants
Active traders can plan for wicky price action around six figures. That can mean staged orders, wider stops, and the humility to fade leverage when positioning gets crowded. The edge comes from respecting the structural bid while staying nimble enough to handle volatility pockets.
“Never Below $100K” Doesn’t Mean “No Volatility”
Even if BTC spends little time under $100K going forward, it can still experience 10–30% swings above that line. That’s crypto. The difference in this cycle is the quality of demand and the professionalization of market structure, both of which tend to shorten drawdown durations and strengthen recoveries.
Standard Chartered’s call synthesizes these forces: a likely last dip under $100K, followed by a climb toward prior targets (they’ve repeatedly referenced six-figure year-end projections and $250K in the cycle). However you allocate, the signal is to be strategic, not static.
Conclusion
The Bitcoin price is no longer negotiating with five digits in the same way it once did with five figures. With spot ETF rails humming, supply increasingly locked with long-term holders, post-halving issuance throttled, and institutional allocators building disciplined exposures, the argument for a durable $100K floor is stronger than any prior cycle. Standard Chartered’s research crystallizes this into a tradable idea: if BTC does dip under six figures, it may be your last real chance at those prices before the market makes $100K the new normal—a launchpad, not a ceiling. None of this eliminates volatility or left-tail shocks. But it reframes the risk-reward of waiting for “the perfect entry” versus participating in a maturing macro asset with programmatic scarcity.
FAQs
Q: Did Standard Chartered literally say Bitcoin will never again go below $100,000?
Not in those exact words. Recent notes suggest a brief dip below $100K is likely—but that it would probably be the last major opportunity at that level before the next leg higher. The spirit of the call is that time spent below $100K should be limited as structural demand grows.
Q: What are the biggest forces supporting a $100K floor?
The spot Bitcoin ETF bid, persistent institutional adoption, shrinking on-exchange supply, and post-halving issuance dynamics all point to stronger downside absorption. Together, they can convert $100K from a battleground into a springboard over time.
Q: Could a macro shock push Bitcoin well under $100K for longer?
Yes. A severe risk-off event, regulatory surprise, or market-structure failure could extend time below six figures. The difference now is the scale and quality of demand that often buys those dips, which can shorten the duration of drawdowns compared to past cycles.
Q: How do ETF flows actually help?
ETFs channel new capital from traditional platforms into spot BTC repeatedly. That creates a steady buyer that can soak up supply on red days, making it harder for prices to live below major levels like $100K for long.
Q: What long-term targets has Standard Chartered discussed?
The bank has flagged six-figure year-end outcomes in prior research and a potential cycle high near $250,000. While the path isn’t linear, those signposts reinforce the idea that $100K could evolve into a structural floor rather than a fragile threshold.
