$59K and the Slope Is Slippery: StanChart Declares Crypto Winter Over, Galaxy Demands a Coat 🌱

Standard Chartered analyst Geoffrey Kendrick told clients on Friday that bitcoin's cycle low is locked in at $59,000, a 53% decline from the Oct. 6 all-time high of $126,000, declaring "Winter is over. Welcome back to crypto Spring." CoinDesk data shows bitcoin touched as low as $59,375 on June 5 around 18:00 UTC, and was last trading near $63,704 on Sunday, according to CoinMarketCap.

Kendrick, who holds a $4,000 ether and a $100,000 bitcoin year-end target, identified two catalysts he believes ended the selloff. He pointed to spot bitcoin ETF redemptions totaling $5.72 billion since the second week of May, with some holders liquidating positions to participate in SpaceX's IPO, which began trading on Nasdaq at roughly $150 on Friday and is up about 26% from its IPO price. He also cited the potential for a U.S.-Iran peace deal ahead of the June 15-17 G7 summit in Evian, which could ease oil prices, cool rising U.S. Treasury yields and reduce macro pressure on crypto.

U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs recorded $85.84 million in net inflows on Friday, with five funds adding money and eight showing no net change, according to SoSoValue. Galaxy Research head of firmwide research Alex Thorn offered a competing view this week, arguing that only four of the 13 signals that marked every prior bottom have triggered, and that the four-year cycle is compressing. Galaxy's base case places the floor between $40,000 and $46,000 by late 2026, pointing out that past bottoms arrived 12 to 13 months after each top, while the current cycle sits just eight months past its October peak. Thorn noted that the 51% decline remains far milder than the 77% to 85% drops that ended past cycles.

Kendrick, for his part, said he is watching three indicators to confirm a durable bottom: Strategy's expected disclosure of additional bitcoin purchases following Michael Saylor's Sunday post that read "Still adding dots"; sustained positive ETF inflows; and continued declines in crude oil futures, which fell on Friday for a second straight session. Kendrick's own February forecast had called for possible capitulation near $50,000, which he framed as a buy level, a threshold the market has so far avoided.

Saylor, founder of Strategy (MSTR), separately defended the company's first reported bitcoin sale since 2022, a June 1 disclosure of 32 BTC, telling Cointelegraph at the BTC Prague conference that the ability to sell is necessary to continue issuing "digital credit" instruments backed by bitcoin.