Standard Chartered (STAN.L) said on Monday that the value of top cryptocurrency bitcoin may reach $50,000 this year and $120,000 by the end of 2024, anticipating that the current increase in its price may drive bitcoin “miners” to stockpile additional supplies.
Standard Chartered issued a $100,000 end-of-year projection for bitcoin in April, believing that the so-called “crypto winter” had passed, but one of the bank’s senior FX experts, Geoff Kendrick, claimed there was now a 20% “upside” to that statement.
Bitcoin’s price has increased by 80% since the beginning of the year, but it is still less than half the $69,000 it peaked at in November 2021.
Trillions of dollars were wiped out of the crypto business in 2022 as central banks raised interest rates and a slew of crypto enterprises crumbled, including the FTX exchange. The failure of a number of traditional-style banks this year, on the other hand, has fueled the recovery.
The explanation for Standard Chartered’s expected price hike was that miners who mint the 900 new bitcoins created each day across the world will soon need to sell fewer to meet their costs – largely electricity to operate supercomputers.
According to Kendrick, miners have lately sold 100% of their fresh currencies. If the price reaches $50,000, they will most likely only sell 20-30%.
The total amount of bitcoins that can be mined each day is also slated to half in April or May due to an inherent supply and issuance system that gradually restricts supply to retain its attraction.
During previous bitcoin rallies, predictions of sky-high prices were prevalent. In November 2020, a Citi analyst predicted that bitcoin might reach $318,000 by the end of 2022. It finished last year at $16,500, down approximately 65%.
