Banking giant Standard Chartered has updated its bitcoin price forecast. The bank’s head of crypto research now expects bitcoin to reach $50,000 this year and $120,000 the following year. “Increased miner profitability per bitcoin mined means they can sell less while maintaining cash inflows, reducing net BTC supply and pushing BTC prices higher,” the analyst explained.

Standard Chartered Boosts Bitcoin Price Prediction

Geoff Kendrick, head of Standard Chartered’s crypto research team and emerging markets FX (West), has raised his bitcoin price prediction. Standard Chartered is a banking corporation with global headquarters in London, England. Operating in more than 57 markets worldwide, the bank’s total assets at the end of 1Q 2023 amounted to $821 billion.

Kendrick stated in April that crypto winter had ended, predicting at the time that bitcoin’s price could reach $100K. The Standard Chartered analyst now expects the price of the largest cryptocurrency to reach $50,000 this year and $120,000 by the end of 2024. He believes that the price surge could incentivize bitcoin miners to hoard more of the cryptocurrency’s supply.

“As well as maintaining the Bitcoin ledger, miners play a key role in determining net supply of newly mined BTC. Specifically, based on their profitability, miners decide how much of the new BTC supply reaches the market,” Kendrick wrote on Monday, adding:

Increased miner profitability per BTC (bitcoin) mined means they can sell less while maintaining cash inflows, reducing net BTC supply and pushing BTC prices higher.

He explained that the reason behind his projected BTC price increase was that miners worldwide, who mint 900 new bitcoins daily, would soon need to sell fewer coins to cover their costs, including electricity needed to power mining equipment.

Kendrick estimated that bitcoin miners have been selling 100% of their newly mined coins. However, if the price of bitcoin hits $50,000, he expects them to only sell 20%-30% of their output. The Standard Chartered analyst detailed:

It is the equivalent of miners reducing the amount of bitcoins they sell per day to just 180-270 from 900 currently.

“Over a year, that would reduce miner selling from 328,500 to a range of 65,700-98,550 — a reduction in net BTC supply of roughly 250,000 bitcoins a year,” he added.

Standard Chartered launched a cryptocurrency exchange and brokerage service in June 2021. The bank’s CEO, Bill Winters, previously said that the adoption of digital currencies is “absolutely inevitable.”

At the time of writing, bitcoin is trading at $30,506, up 18% in the past 30 days and 84% year-to-date. Last week, crypto firm Matrixpoint predicted that bitcoin will reach $125,000 by the end of 2024. Meanwhile, venture capitalist Tim Draper has insisted that BTC will hit $250,000 in about two years.

Do you think the price of bitcoin will reach $120,000 by the end of 2024 as predicted by Standard Chartered? Let us know in the comments section below.