Standard Chartered's Geoffrey Kendrick has raised the possibility that his $100,000 year-end forecast for bitcoin may prove too conservative. Kendrick, global head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered Bank, cites record bitcoin short liquidations and renewed ETF demand as factors increasing the market's upside risk. He now sees a possible year-end run from $79,500 toward bitcoin's $126,000 record, a 58% climb.
Record Short Liquidations
The scale of the reversal led Kendrick to describe the week as bitcoin's largest short-liquidation event in the available record. Coinglass data shows BTC short liquidations approaching $1.44 billion during the Aug. 19-21 rally, the largest daily total shown during that window. Kendrick noted that this event ranked as the largest BTC short-liquidation event in the dataset, which extends back to June 2021.
Institutional Demand
Institutional demand also strengthened as U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) returned to net inflows during the rally. Kendrick estimated that the funds had collected approximately $1.5 billion by early Aug. 21, with the strongest session of the period coming on Aug. 20, when the funds attracted $606.29 million. Blackrock's IBIT accounted for $502.99 million, or approximately 83% of the daily total.
Upside Risk
Kendrick connected the record short liquidations with growing upside risk for his year-end target, stating that 'for the first time this year there is now a risk my end year forecast (of USD100k) is too low.' This upside risk partly reflects how forced position closures can accelerate an already-rising market. Short liquidations occur when exchanges automatically close leveraged bearish positions after rising prices reduce their margin below maintenance requirements.
