Standard Chartered's Head of Digital Asset Research Geoffrey Kendrick Is Bullish on Bitcoin (BTC)

Standard Chartered's head of digital asset research Geoffrey Kendrick is leaning bullish on Bitcoin (BTC) amid a correction that has seen the crypto king fall 25%

Standard Chartered’s head of digital asset research Geoffrey Kendrick is remaining bullish on Bitcoin (BTC) amid a correction that has seen the crypto king fall 25% from the all-time high reached in January.

Kendrick tells CNBC that a “lot of negativity” thrown at the crypto sector recently has seen Bitcoin's price return to levels last seen about four months ago.

“So somewhat challenging times but again for me the medium-term story still remains very, very positive.”

According to Kendrick, Bitcoin could go up 145% this year and up to 513%, or roughly 6x, by early 2029.

“[The] medium-term topside potential… which for me is Bitcoin up to $200,000 this year. And $500,000 before Trump leaves office.”

On the catalysts that could drive Bitcoin to rally to a price of up to half a million dollars, the Standard Chartered head of digital asset research says,

“We should get more regulatory clarity through the year. This is stablecoin regulation. We should get some know-your-client (KYC)-type regulations come through, which can help the industry as well. And that should further legitimize.

So you’ll see more US banks involved, and you’ll see larger institutions in the US continue to push through.

And in the exchange-traded funds (ETF) so far, we haven’t really seen much of the very long-term pension funds in the US. So here I’m thinking state pension funds, etc. that are huge in size. They have $40 trillion worth of assets and they only currently own 1% of all the ETFs in the US. So there’s that very long-term sector that is still to participate.

More regulatory clarity will help that. And then also sovereigns. So the only sovereign that we know so far has bought the ETFs is Abu Dhabi Sovereign Wealth Fund… I’d expect more of that to come through this year as well. So long-term pension funds, sovereigns, etc. getting involved.”

Bitcoin is trading at $81,575 at time of writing.