Standard Chartered: The situation in the Middle East has caused Bitcoin to pull back recently, but it will double again before the end of the year

After Bitcoin completed its "halving" event last Saturday, JPMorgan issued a warning that Bitcoin may fall after the "halving". However, Jeff Kendrick, head of digital asset research at Standard Chartered Bank, reiterated in a recent interview that his price target for Bitcoin at the end of this year is $150,000, which means that Bitcoin will rise by more than double on the basis of its historical high in March of this year by the end of this year.

Kendrick said that the recent decline in Bitcoin is mainly due to the slowdown in ETF inflows and the tension in the Middle East - he bluntly stated that the Middle East situation currently "dominates" the cryptocurrency market. However, looking to the future, he believes that with the continuous inflow of large-scale Bitcoin ETF funds, the cryptocurrency market may reverse its downward trend later this year and continue to rise.

Kendrick estimates that the US spot Bitcoin ETF has attracted about $12 billion since it was approved in January of this year. He predicts that although the sentiment in the "coin circle" is currently cautious, once the US cryptocurrency ETF market becomes more "mature", the inflow of funds in the next two years may reach $50 billion to $100 billion.