While the financial world waits to find out when and which applications of Bitcoin’s spot ETFs will gain approval, Standard Chartered Bank issued a forecast on Monday that the price of Bitcoin will exceed $200,000 by the end of 2025.
“If ETF-linked flows materialize as we expect, we believe an end-2025 level closer to ($200,000) is possible,” Jeffrey Kendrick, head of financial research at Standard Chartered, said in a note to investors.
Bitcoin ETFs track the current price of Bitcoin and are designed to track Bitcoin price fluctuations, giving investors exposure without having to purchase and store the digital asset itself. Bitcoin ETFs are managed by an investment company that holds Bitcoin.
BlackRock, Grayscale, Ark, iShares, Bitwise, VanEck, Wisdomtree, Invesco, Fidelity, and Franklin have ETFs in the final approval process.
Kendrick said the 2025 forecast is consistent with their previous estimate of $100,000 by the end of 2024.
“ETF approval is the main driver of Bitcoin price appreciation,” Kendrick said. “We view this as a watershed moment for the normalization of Bitcoin participation by institutional funds, and we expect the approval to lead to a significant inflow and rise in Bitcoin prices.”
Kendrick’s statement coincides with a statement by Eric Balchunas, a senior Bloomberg ETF analyst, who said on Thursday that a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund could generate $100 million within a decade.
“A few billion dollars would be a strong new year for any category, but I would be a little more optimistic than that, like maybe $10 billion in the first year,” Balchunas said.
“It’s the short term that’s hard to predict here. “In the medium term, we see that, maybe in the range of $30 billion to $50 billion over three years,” he continued. “And then maybe it will stabilize at the gold level of about $100 billion.” over a period of five to ten years.”
On Saturday, Balchunas put the odds of the SEC approving a bitcoin ETF in January at 95% in a Twitter post.
“I would probably go with 5% at this point. But you have to leave a little window open for these things,” Balchunas said.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.