Standard Chartered Says Bitcoin Bottom Is “Almost In” After 14% Weekly Slide Cuts BTC Below $62,000

Bitcoin dipped below $62,000 Thursday morning, touching a session low near $61,463 before recovering to roughly $64,000 by afternoon, ending the week down approximately 14% and 22% over the past month. The drawdown places BTC roughly 51% below its October 2025 all-time high of $126,277.

Standard Chartered global head of digital assets research Geoff Kendrick told clients that the bear market may be in its final stages. “This week has been painful in crypto. There is really no other way of putting it,” Kendrick wrote in a Thursday client note. “But I think when we look back at the end of 2026 with BTC at $100,000 and ETH at $4,000, we will say this was the buying zone we all wanted.” The note is a direct reversal of Kendrick’s February call, in which he warned of “pain and final capitulation” and cut his near-term BTC target to $50,000.

This story is an excerpt from the Unchained Daily newsletter.

Kendrick laid out three pillars supporting his floor call.

First, Strategy’s pattern in 2022 suggests an aggressive buyback is likely. When the firm last sold BTC in December 2022, it purchased more than it sold just two days later. Kendrick expects a similar move, potentially 10x to 100x the size of the recent 32 BTC sale, with a confirmed purchase by next Monday serving as a tentative signal that the low is in.

Second, spot ETF holdings have held up better than feared. Cumulative net inflows since launch remain at $54.26 billion, and total BTC held across the 11 US-listed funds sits at approximately 674,000 BTC, down from a peak near 682,000 but structurally intact.

Third, Kendrick expects oil-driven inflation pressure to ease as US-Iran ceasefire prospects improve.

The data behind the slide is heavy. Spot Bitcoin ETFs posted three consecutive weeks of outflows, with cumulative redemptions reaching $4.21 billion over that stretch, the largest institutional de-risking streak of 2026 per Glassnode. Wednesday alone saw $396.6 million in net daily outflows. Total ETF AUM has slid to $82.83 billion.

Glassnode also flagged the $83,000 ETF cost basis as a hard ceiling, noting that BTC was rejected at almost exactly that level during the recent bounce. Options markets reinforced the caution: QCP noted 30-day at-the-money implied volatility repriced to 41.4, up four points on the day and seven on the week. Put premiums across one-month, three-month, and six-month tenors remained elevated at 13% to 14%, with dealer gamma exposure concentrated around current spot.

Bitcoin treasury firms have absorbed substantial damage. Combined market cap losses for the sector hit $62 billion over the recent stretch, per Bloomberg, with Strategy stock down 17% YTD and BitMine filing a $300 million preferred stock offering Wednesday against a paper loss approaching $9.2 billion. Whether Kendrick’s floor call holds depends on the three pillars all firing roughly on schedule.

Related Listen: Why MSTR Should Have Sold $2 Billion Instead of $2 Million of Bitcoin