Previously, we summarized institutions’ judgments on Bitcoin’s trend in 2025, and the result was a “collective miscalculation” – whether it was predictions of growth, rhythm, or retracement paths, they all deviated from the final market trend. Under this premise, the market's trust in "target price narratives" has significantly declined, and forecasts are viewed more as scenario deductions rather than "committed guidance." Despite this, each company still gave a new framework and range: the optimistic camp bet on the structural buying brought about by the expansion of institutional allocations and spot ETF capital channels, with targets mostly focusing on US$150,000-250,000; the cautious and bearish camps emphasized that slowing demand, macro tightening or damage to the technical structure may trigger a deep retracement, which could reach US$70,000, 56,000, 25,000 or even US$10,000. The following table retains the "core conclusions" of each viewpoint and visually presents the scope of disagreements and main logic in 2026.
Tom Lee: 200,000–250,000
In many public discussions in 2025, Tom Lee pointed to the upside in 2026 as being in the range of US$200,000-250,000 by the end of 2026. The core reason he gives is usually the marginal buying brought about by the expansion of institutional allocation and funding channels such as ETFs. He also believes that the cyclical structure may be changed by institutional funds.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-reach-250-000-2026-110500453.html
However, Sean Farrell, head of digital asset strategy at Tom Lee’s fund Fundstrat, said in his latest 2026 cryptocurrency strategy recommendations to internal clients that there will be a deeper correction in the first half of the year, with target prices of BTC 60000–65000, ETH 1800–2000, and SOL 50–75. In response to this, he replied to Wu that Fundstrat is composed of multiple analysts. Each analyst has an independent research framework and time dimension to serve the different needs of different types of customers. He himself prefers to serve investment portfolios with a high proportion of crypto assets, and his strategy emphasizes active management and risk rebalancing; while TomLee targets institutional investors who only allocate 1%-5% of their funds to BTC and ETH, so he focuses more on long-term macro trends and structural judgments, which are not contradictory.
https://x.com/SeanMFarrell/status/2002475989033758740
Ripple CEO: 180,000 Solana Foundation Chairman: more than 100,000
On December 4, 2025, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse made a bold Bitcoin price prediction during the Binance Blockchain Week discussion with Solana Foundation Chairman Lily Liu and Binance CEO Richard Teng. He said he expects BTC to reach $180,000 by the end of 2026. Richard Teng did not give a specific price target but said he expected prices to be higher than current levels. Lily Liu said the price could be higher than $100,000.
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/12/04/ripple-ceo-s-bold-call-bitcoin-to-hit-usd180k-by-end-of-2026
JPMorgan: 170,000
Based on the "volatility-adjusted BTC-gold relative valuation" framework, JPMorgan (Team of Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou) believes that the theoretical price/implied fair price of BTC is close to 170,000, and based on this judgment, there is still room for upside "in the next 6-12 months". It's more like a model-derived valuation upper edge than a "committed end-2026 price target."
https://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-price-prediction-btc-170k-jpmorgan-gold-forecast-2025-12
Standard Chartered Bank: 150,000
Standard Chartered Bank has previously been very optimistic about the long-term trend of Bitcoin. It has predicted that the price of BTC may reach about US$200,000 by the end of 2025 (even higher expectations are expected) and a target of about US$300,000 in 2026. Now the bank has significantly lowered its forecast: Bitcoin is expected to reach about $100,000 by the end of 2025, halved from the previous forecast; the target price in 2026 has been reduced to about $150,000, which is about half of the original expectation. Standard Chartered believes that this is an adjustment to the recent market weakness and weakening driving forces (such as reduced DAT buying and slowing ETF inflows). At the same time, although it is still optimistic that Bitcoin can eventually reach higher levels in the long term, the realization time has been delayed.
The following is Standard Chartered’s prediction of Bitcoin’s price trend over the next four years:
https://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-price-prediction-btc-2026-forecast-standard-chartered-150k-2025-12
Bernstein: 150,000
Wall Street investment bank Bernstein released its latest Bitcoin outlook in the context of the recent market correction, believing that the recent BTC correction does not mean the end of the bull market and that Bitcoin will continue to rise. The agency predicts a Bitcoin price target of approximately $150,000 in 2026 and believes that the Bitcoin price cycle is no longer limited by the traditional four-year halving rhythm, but has entered an extended bull market cycle driven by institutional funds. In the long term, Bernstein maintains his view of a longer-term target (such as about $1 million in 2033), emphasizing institutional demand and ETF inflows as the core driving forces supporting future gains.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bernstein-reveals-bitcoin-target-amid-204043033.html
BSTR President: 150,000
Katherine Dowling, president of Bitcoin Reserve Company BSTR, recently stated that although BTC is still about 20% lower than its previous high, she expects Bitcoin to rise to US$150,000 by the end of 2026; her bullish logic mainly comes from three clues: US encryption regulations and legislation (such as stable currency/market structure related bills, regulatory guidelines) are gradually becoming clearer, the monetary environment may become more relaxed (such as the end of QT, interest rate cuts expectations), and Wall Street and institutional allocations are accelerating (spot BTC ETF With continued penetration, some large banks have begun to allow investment advisors to recommend allocations to Bitcoin ETFs to their clients, giving an allocation range of approximately 1%–4%).
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-hit-150-000-2026-193349256.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Citigroup: 143,000
Citigroup predicts that Bitcoin is expected to rise to $143,000 in the next 12 months, which is about 62% higher than the current price (about $88,000). The forecast is based on expected increases in inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs and the potential for digital asset-related legislation in the United States to drive market adoption. Citi analysts set a key support level of about US$70,000 and gave three directions in the scenario analysis: the basic scenario target is US$143,000, the pessimistic scenario may drop to about US$78,500, and the optimistic scenario may rise to US$189,000 with the large-scale participation of institutions and retail investors.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoin-will-climb-to-143-000-according-to-this-wall-street-forecast-cd202b39
Arthur Hayes: 124,000 to 200,000
In his article "Love Language" on December 19, veteran crypto trader Arthur Hayes discussed the new term RMP (Reserve Management Purchases) launched by the Federal Reserve, arguing that it is essentially equivalent to quantitative easing (QE) – that is, money printing in disguise. The article points out that the Federal Reserve and political officials use complicated terminology to cover up that they are actually expanding the money supply. This monetary expansion will eventually push up the prices of financial assets (such as Bitcoin, gold, etc.). The analysis of the article believes that as major central banks around the world accelerate money creation, Bitcoin has the potential to exceed approximately US$124,000 in 2026 and further impact the level of ~US$200,000. Hayes' logic is based on: money supply expansion → inflationary pressure → investors turn to limited supply assets (such as BTC) as a hedge.
https://cryptohayes.substack.com/p/love-language
Jocy, founding partner of IOSG: 120,000 to 150,000
Jocy, the founding partner of IOSG, gave a more "half-year perspective" judgment in a long public post/paraphrase: the mid-term (first half of 2026) target is US$120,000-150,000, and summarized the driving factors as "dual drivers of policy and institutions"; he also explained the market structure in 2025 (long-term holders are distributed in batches, etc.), believing that multiple waves of allocation make the trend more tortuous.
https://x.com/jocyiosg/status/2002730918142783882
Grayscale: A new high in the first half of the year
Asset management company Grayscale predicted in its latest 2026 Digital Asset Outlook report that Bitcoin will hit a new all-time high in the first half of 2026. Grayscale believes that the main factors driving price increases include the continued growth of institutional investment demand and the gradual clarity of the U.S. regulatory environment, which will attract more funds to enter the market. The company also pointed out that as demand for alternative value storage instruments (such as BTC) rises at the macro level, and regulatory progress brings mainstream adoption, Bitcoin’s valuation is overall bullish in 2026, and believes that the traditional “four-year cycle theory” may be invalid in the current cycle.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/grayscale-predicts-bitcoin-all-time-high-q1-2026
Bitwise: Hit new highs
Bitwise judged in its annual outlook "The Year Ahead: 10 Crypto Predictions for 2026" (December 15, 2025): Although mainstream currencies will retreat from their highs at the end of 2025 and market sentiment is cautious, 2026 is more likely to be "bullish", and institutional adoption and regulatory progress will overwhelm the retracement expectations brought about by the traditional "four-year cycle", and gave 10 predictions: BTC breaks the four-year cycle and reaches new highs, BTC Volatility will be lower than Nvidia, U.S. spot ETFs will buy more than 100% of the annual new supply of BTC/ETH/SOL, crypto-related stocks outperform technology stocks, Polymarket open interest hits a new all-time high, stablecoins will be "accused" of disturbing an emerging market currency, on-chain treasury ("ETF 2.0") AUM doubles, ETH and SOL if the "CLARITY Act" is passed Another new high, half of the Ivy League foundations have allocated crypto assets, and more than 100 crypto-related ETFs will be launched in the United States; additional judgments are that the correlation between BTC and stocks has declined.
https://bitwiseinvestments.com/crypto-market-insights/the-year-ahead-10-crypto-predictions-for-2026
CryptoQuant: 56,000 to 70,000
CryptoQuant, an on-chain data analysis agency, said that the market may have entered a bear market stage due to a significant slowdown in demand growth for Bitcoin. Based on its model, there are downside risks to the current Bitcoin price: it may first fall towards the support level of about $70,000 in the medium term. If momentum continues to weaken, a deeper correction may touch about $56,000, a level close to the so-called "realized price". Historically, the bottom of bear markets is often aligned with this indicator. Factors such as weak institutional demand (such as spot ETFs turning into net sales) and declining risk appetite in the derivatives market are regarded as the main reasons. In terms of timing, a drop to $70,000 may occur in the next few months, while $56,000 is more of a longer-term scenario in the second half of 2026.
https://www.theblock.co/post/383407/cryptoquant-bitcoin-bear-market
Peter Brandt: 25,000
Senior trader Peter Brandt warned that Bitcoin’s current parabolic growth structure has broken down, which historically usually means that the market will see a major correction. Based on historical cycles, Brandt observed that Bitcoin bull markets exhibit what’s known as “exponential decay”—each bull cycle’s rise becomes progressively smaller, making price corrections likely to be deeper and faster once trend support is broken. Based on his analysis of past cycles, if Bitcoin retraces significantly by about 80% from its historical high, the price may drop to about $25,000 as a reference for the bottom of a potential pullback. This view emphasizes the downside risks caused by technical structural failures rather than upward predictions in the traditional sense.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/peter-brandt-bitcoin-price-exponential-decay-model-2026-25k
Mike McGlone: 10,000
Mike McGlone, senior commodities strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, issued an extremely pessimistic warning, saying that after experiencing a recent shock above $100,000, Bitcoin may fall sharply back to about $10,000 in 2026 – equivalent to a drop of about 88%–90% from its historical high. He believes that this risk comes from the shift in the macroeconomic environment to "post-inflationary deflation", tightening liquidity, and deep adjustments in the speculative asset market, which may lead to the overall collapse of the crypto asset market and prompt a sharp decline in Bitcoin prices. McGlone noted that a breakout of price highs may have initiated a reverse correction cycle, similar to the deep retracements that have historically followed asset bubbles.
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/12/18/bloomberg-intelligence-strategist-mike-mcglone-sees-bitcoin-at-10000-in-2026
Barclays Bank: No clear price
Barclays Bank released a research report stating that in the absence of major market catalysts (such as regulatory breakthroughs, product launches or policy promotions), the cryptocurrency market may perform flat or even weak in 2026, and trading activity and investor enthusiasm will be difficult to significantly rebound. The bank pointed out that spot trading volume continued to decline and retail investor participation weakened, which put pressure on platforms that rely on trading volume for profitability (such as Coinbase, Robinhood). Barclays believes that the market is more likely to enter a "transitional" stage, with insufficient motivation for sharp price increases, and it is difficult to see new growth drivers in the short term; it also mentioned that regulatory clarity (such as CLARITY Act) and long-term technological development may be potential benefits in the future, but they will have limited effect in 2026.
VanEck: Consolidation stage, partial to “consolidation/consolidation year”
In its 2026 investment outlook report, investment management company VanEck expressed cautious optimism about Bitcoin and market direction but no longer issued a clear price target. The report believes that Bitcoin is more likely to enter a "consolidation" stage in 2026 – neither an explosive rise nor a collapse, but a sideways fluctuation and digestion of previous fluctuations. VanEck pointed out: Bitcoin’s four-year cycle is still there, but its current trend lags behind the performance of assets such as the Nasdaq, reflecting the short-term weakness in market risk appetite and liquidity; as global liquidity, credit environment and on-chain activities gradually improve, 2026 may be a relatively mature year of integration, suitable for accumulating positions through disciplined strategies such as fixed investment. The report emphasizes that opportunities come from ecological developments such as Bitcoin mining economic structural adjustment and stable currency payment, rather than specific price expectations.
https://www.vaneck.com/us/en/blogs/investment-outlook/plan-for-2026-predictions-from-our-portfolio-managers/
