Bitcoin is set for more price gains later this year, even after a recent retreat in prices, according to Standard Chartered’s top crypto analyst. Geoffrey Kendrick, head of foreign exchange research, West, and digital assets research at Standard Chartered, said in a research note this week that he sees bitcoin rising to $150,000 per coin, and ether hitting $8,000 by the end of 2024 — doubling down on a bullish prediction from the bank earlier this year. “We think the bad news is already priced in for BTC and ETH, and that positive structural drivers will take over again as negative drivers fade,” Kendrick said in the April 22 note. “In addition, market positioning is now much cleaner than it was; USD 261mn of leveraged long positions were removed from BTC futures alone on 13 April – the largest daily liquidation since at least October 2023 – in response to Iran’s attack on Israel that day.” Kendrick was referring to the liquidation of speculative bitcoin trades that were augmented by investors using borrowed cash to make bigger bets on the future swings in the price of the cryptocurrency. Bitcoin temporarily sank below $60,000 last week as traders reacted to news of an escalating military conflict between Iran and Israel. While the cryptocurrency’s proponents believe bitcoin to be a hedge against periods of economic and geopolitical instability, bitcoin has behaved more like traditional risk assets, like equities, in recent years, as more institutional investors have piled money into the asset. In fact, bitcoin’s trading has shown it can often react to bad news more quickly than equity traders as the crypto market runs 24/7, while stocks and other conventional markets trade only during weekdays. Still, despite bitcoin’s losses in the wake of Iran’s recent attack on Israel, Kendrick believes the cryptocurrency has potential to move higher in the coming months and hit a fresh record high well above the $73,797.68 price it hit on March 14. Kendrick said that the supply shock from bitcoin’s halving — which limits the supply of new bitcoin issuance to 3.125 bitcoins, or about $208,360.31 as of Wednesday, down from 6.25 bitcoins — as well as the arrival of new bitcoin exchange-traded funds, which are sucking up billions’ of dollars worth of the cryptocurrency from exchanges, would support prices toward the end of 2024. That’s even as the token contends with a litany of other bad news, including a stalling of new bitcoin ETF inflows in the United States; dampening expectations for approval of an ether spot ETF in the U.S.; a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit against decentralized exchange Uniswap; higher U.S. Treasury yields; and escalating tensions in the Middle East. “Yes BTC ETF inflows in the US have stalled, but now we are passed the halving only half as much inflow is needed to cover net new supply, and the global ETF backdrop (UK, HK) is improving. Also, large long liquidations over the past couple of weeks mean that market positioning is a lot cleaner,” Kendrick said. “As a result, with Middle East tensions easing I think it is time to re-engage in medium-term longs.”
SoFi CEO Anthony Noto said the fintech bank will bring back cryptocurrency investing this year after a “fundamental shift” in the regulatory landscape under the Trump administration.
SoFi was forced to drop crypto investing in late 2023 as a condition of receiving a bank charter in a time of heightened federal scrutiny of digital assets. Customers, who had access to more than 20 crypto coins at the time, were either shunted to Blockchain.com or liquidated their holdings.
But after new guidance from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the technology company is planning an aggressive push back into crypto, Noto told CNBC late Monday in an interview.
“We’re going to re-enter the crypto business, which we had to exit,” Noto said. “We’ll re-enter the business of allowing our members to invest in cryptocurrency. We want to actually make a bigger, more comprehensive push into cryptocurrency [this time], to include really providing crypto or blockchain capabilities in each product area that we have.”
The SoFi announcement is early proof that banks are looking to push further into crypto in the Trump era. In January, the CEOs of Bank of America and Morgan Stanley said that their institutions were ready to get involved in crypto. At the same time, crypto firms including Circle and BitGo are planning to apply for bank charters or licenses, further blurring the lines between traditional and digital finance.
SoFi should be able to offer crypto investing by year-end, barring unforeseen circumstances, Noto said.
He specifically cited a recent letter “that basically said that OCC-regulated banks can operate in crypto businesses, and that is a fundamental shift in the regulatory landscape.”
The CEO said that expected the current regulatory environment, in which Trump appointees rolled back restrictions around crypto and a regulatory framework for stablecoins is making its way through Congress, to allow the company to expand beyond investing.
Over the next six to 24 months, SoFi will look to adopt crypto or its underlying technology in all of the company’s major product lines, Noto said. That timeline could be accelerated with acquisitions, he added.
“Our aspirations are as broad as they are for any other product that we have, and we believe we can leverage the technology across lending and savings and spending and investing and protecting,” Noto said.
Future products could include borrowing cash based on the value of crypto held with SoFi, as well as using crypto in payments, Noto said.
A sign for Deutsche Bank AG at a bank branch in the financial district of Frankfurt, Germany, on Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Germany’s largest lender Deutsche Bank on Tuesday posted higher-than-expected first-quarter profit as lenders in Europe’s largest economy navigate broader market turbulence instigated by U.S. tariff policies.
Net profit attributable to shareholders reached 1.775 billion euros ($2.019 billion) in the first quarter, up 39% year-on-year and above analyst expectations of around 1.64 billion euros, according to a Reuters poll. The bank reported profit of 106 million euros for the December quarter.
Revenues reached 8.524 billion euros over the period, up 10% year-on-year and above a $7.224-billion-euro result in the fourth quarter.
In a statement accompanying the results, Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing said the print “put us on track for delivery on all our 2025 targets” and marked “our best quarterly profit for fourteen years.”
Other fourth-quarter highlights included:
Profit before tax of 2.837 billion euros, up 39% year-on-year.
CET 1 capital ratio, a measure of bank solvency, was 13.8%, unchanged from the fourth quarter.
Post-tax return on tangible equity (ROTE) rate of 11.9%, against a 10% target for 2025.
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