The crypto market has taken a heavy beating since Bitcoin notched all-time highs eight months ago, though it’s likely past its nadir, according to Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick.
The investment bank’s global head of digital asset research posited in a Friday note that Bitcoin’s recent fall to nearly $59,000 marked crypto winter’s most frigid conditions—representing a 53% drawdown from its peak price of $126,000 in October. “I think we have now seen the low in crypto asset prices,” he wrote. “Winter is over.” Developments on Friday are shaping up as catalysts for a crypto market that has proved tepid in recent months, Kendrick added, pointing to signs of a potential peace deal between the U.S. and Iran ahead of next week’s G7 summit, as well as SpaceX’s historic $1.75 trillion IPO
Since war in the Middle East began choking global oil supplies, surging energy costs have coaxed U.S. Treasury yields higher, punishing risk assets like crypto as guaranteed, risk-free government debt has become relatively attractive, Kendrick noted. The investment bank issued a $100,000 price target for Bitcoin in February.
Bitcoin recently changed hands above $64,000, a 5% increase over the past week, according to CoinGecko. Over the same period, the total value of all cryptocurrencies tracked by the crypto data aggregator had edged down to $2.277 trillion from $2.29 trillion. Although President Trump has claimed numerous times that the U.S. and Iran are close to establishing an arrangement that would signal an end to the three-month conflict, he announced on Thursday that a breakthrough could come this weekend, per AP News. “If true, [it] may sound the end to higher oil prices,” Kendrick wrote.