Bitcoin may have just turned a corner. Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick declared in a client note published Friday that the cryptocurrency has printed its definitive cycle low, with the floor now locked in at approximately $59,000 — and that the protracted downturn gripping digital asset markets since last autumn is firmly behind us.
“Winter is over,” Kendrick wrote. “Welcome back to crypto Spring.”
The $59,375 intraday low touched on June 5 represents a 53% decline from Bitcoin’s all-time high of $126,000, set on October 6, 2025. Kendrick’s position is that this level represents a hard floor he does not expect prices to breach again during the current cycle. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading just below $64,000 — roughly 8% above that trough and still a long way from its peak, but stabilizing.
Bitcoin (BTC) Price Performance (Source: CoinMarketCap)
Two Catalysts, One Turning Point
Kendrick’s bullish call rests on two macro developments that converged on Friday, each capable of defusing a distinct source of selling pressure that has weighed on crypto markets in recent weeks.
The first is the SpaceX initial public offering. Since the second week of May, total redemptions from U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs exceeded $5.72 billion — some of the sharpest selling since the vehicles launched. Kendrick argued that a meaningful portion of that outflow was not driven by bearish conviction but by capital rotation: investors liquidating Bitcoin ETF positions to free up cash to participate in Elon Musk’s rocket company going public. SpaceX shares began trading on Nasdaq at around $150 on Friday and are now approximately 26% above their IPO price. With those allocations now made, the IPO-related headwind should largely dissipate.
The second catalyst is geopolitical. A G7-related peace deal between the United States and Iran, if finalised, could arrest the escalation in oil prices — and lower energy costs would subsequently ease upward pressure on U.S. Treasury yields, relieving a key macro constraint on risk assets including crypto. The mechanics are straightforward: elevated yields make risk-free government debt more attractive relative to speculative assets, draining liquidity from markets like Bitcoin. Brent crude fell to around $87 a barrel on Friday, while West Texas Intermediate hovered near $85, as President Trump spoke of a likely peace deal with Tehran.
However, the diplomatic picture remains fluid. Trump subsequently reversed course in a post on Truth Social, stating that the deal made public was not what had been agreed, and warned Iranian officials to quickly “get their act together.” The resulting uncertainty leaves the geopolitical leg of Kendrick’s thesis conditional rather than confirmed.
Three Metrics to Watch
Rather than simply declaring the bottom and moving on, Kendrick framed the call around a set of concrete confirmation signals he expects to materialise in the coming days. The framework centres on three inputs: a return to net-positive U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF inflows, renewed corporate treasury accumulation, and continued declines in oil prices.
On the corporate treasury front, Kendrick is watching for an announcement from Michael Saylor’s Strategy — the company formerly known as MicroStrategy — indicating that it purchased additional Bitcoin during the week. Strategy has functioned as a consistent demand floor for the asset, and renewed buying from the firm would signal that institutional conviction at the corporate level remains intact.
Standard Chartered’s framing is notable in that it treats $59,000 as a macro and flow-based bottom rather than simply a technical chart level — making the next round of ETF data and oil price movements especially significant for traders tracking the call.
Bitcoin ETF Flow (Source: Farside Investors)
Bear Market in Context — and What Comes Next
The severity of the current drawdown sits in an unusual position by Bitcoin‘s own historical standards. Bitcoin’s 2017-2018 bear market delivered an 84% peak-to-trough decline. The 2021-2022 cycle saw roughly 77%. A 53% correction is brutal by conventional asset standards, but almost modest by Bitcoin’s own history. That framing has led some analysts to suggest the cycle structure remains intact, with the pullback serving as a reset rather than a structural breakdown.
Standard Chartered has set a year-end 2026 price target of $100,000 for Bitcoin, implying roughly 70% upside from current levels. The bank had previously held even more aggressive targets, including $150,000, which were adjusted downward as market conditions deteriorated. Kendrick also maintained a $4,000 price target for Ether, and has separately argued that the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap is positioned to outperform Bitcoin in the recovery phase.
Not all observers share Kendrick’s confidence. ETF flows remain in negative territory on a monthly basis, leverage across crypto derivatives markets has been significantly reduced — a sign of capitulation, but also of a market still lacking fresh directional conviction — and the Iran peace deal that underpins part of the macro thesis is far from certain. Any sustained re-escalation in the Middle East conflict, or a surprise uptick in U.S. inflation data, could rapidly reassert the same yield-driven pressure that has suppressed crypto prices since late 2025.
The total value of all tracked cryptocurrencies had edged lower to $2.277 trillion in recent days, a market-wide figure that underscores how broadly the downturn has spread beyond Bitcoin alone. Whether Friday’s confluence of catalysts proves durable enough to mark a genuine inflection — or simply a brief reprieve in a still-fragile market — will likely become clearer by early next week, when ETF flow data and any Strategy announcement land.
For now, at least one of Wall Street’s most closely followed crypto analysts is calling time on the cold.
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