Bitcoin (BTC) surges, is the bull market coming? Standard Chartered Bank: $120,000 may be conservative

Bitcoin (BTC) broke through the $100,000 mark in trading on Thursday (May 8), hitting a new high since February this year. Analysts pointed out that the rise is closely related to the recovery of global risk appetite, and the US stock market has also continued to rebound from the lows in April.

Geoffrey Kendrick, head of digital asset research at Standard Chartered, recently said that his previous prediction of "Bitcoin prices will reach $120,000" now looks "very achievable" and may even be "too conservative."

He said: "The dominant narrative of Bitcoin has changed again. At first it was associated with risky assets... and then became a tool for strategic reallocation from US assets. Now, everything revolves around capital flows. Funds are flowing in in many forms."

Kendrick pointed out that the US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) has attracted $5.3 billion in inflows in the past three weeks, indicating that more and more institutional funds are accelerating their entry.

He cited several cases where large investors have allocated part of their assets to Bitcoin, including:

Strategy continues to significantly increase its holdings of Bitcoin;

Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund holds BlackRock's IBIT Bitcoin ETF;

The Swiss National Bank also bought shares of Strategy.

It is worth mentioning that Strategy is widely regarded as an "indirect representative asset" of Bitcoin, and its stock price trend is highly correlated with Bitcoin.

Antoni Trenchev, co-founder of cryptocurrency trading platform Nexo, said: "Bitcoin not only returned to $100,000 for the first time in three months, but also further consolidated its status as the "king of rebound" asset, especially against the backdrop of improved US trade prospects."

However, Trenchev also reminded that if Bitcoin is to truly establish a new round of bull market, it still needs to break through the January high of $109,350. In the next two months, Bitcoin will continue to fluctuate between $70,000 and $109,000.

Leah Wald, CEO of SOL Strategies, also warned that Bitcoin is still a high-volatility risk asset and has not yet completely decoupled from traditional markets. Both ups and downs may be amplified under sentiment.

In recent years, analysts have also observed a trend: Bitcoin's trading behavior is increasingly similar to risky assets, such as US technology stocks - the logic behind this is that more and more institutional capital is flowing into Bitcoin, making it more susceptible to the same market risks as the stock market.