Standard Chartered Bank Reaffirms $200,000 Year-End Price Target for Bitcoin: Bullish Thesis Supported by Three Major Drivers

On July 2nd, Standard Chartered Bank predicted in its newly released H2 2025 Outlook report that the price of Bitcoin would ascend to $135,000 by the end of September and reaffirmed its year-end target price of $200,000 (which is nearly double the current price of $107,800 as of July 3rd). Geoffrey Kendrick, the director of Digital Assets Research at the bank, pointed out that a combination of three factors, namely spot ETF inflows, the growth of corporate treasury demand, and favorable policies, will propel Bitcoin to achieve its most robust surge in USD price during the second half of 2025. "Although the recent pace of accumulation by MicroStrategy has decelerated, the rush of non-MicroStrategy institutions in the second quarter indicates that new entrants are sufficient to fill the demand gap in the third quarter," wrote Geoffrey Kendrick in the report. "We anticipate that the overall Bitcoin purchases by corporate treasuries in the third quarter will surpass those in the second quarter, resulting in sustained inflows." Standard Chartered Bank believes that the current Bitcoin price trend is driven by institutional demand rather than the supply tightening logic witnessed in past halving cycles. Historical data shows that Bitcoin peaked and retraced after 526 days and 547 days following the previous halvings, but Geoffrey Kendrick pointed out that new capital channels such as ETFs and corporate treasuries (which did not exist in prior cycles) have disrupted this pattern. He expects that the selling pressure from long-term holders will be weaker in 2025, and continuous inflows will be adequate to absorb any profit-taking. Furthermore, Geoffrey Kendrick particularly highlighted the significance of the 10-year Treasury yield spread indicator — since the early days of 2024, the Bitcoin price trend has been highly in sync with this indicator, and Standard Chartered anticipates that the yield spread will continue to rise.