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Bitcoin (BTC) may hit $100,000 in one year’s time thanks to “earlier than expected” exchange-traded funds (ETF) launching, says Standard Chartered.

In a research note issued on Nov. 28 quoted by sources including Business Insider, the banking giant doubled down on its bullish BTC price targets.

Standard Chartered still expects six-figure BTC price

Bitcoin is in line to trade at six figures by the end of 2024, the latest forecast from Standard Chartered concludes.

Thanks to the United States potentially approving Bitcoin spot price ETFs, BTC/USD has the ability to almost treble from its current $37,700 over the coming 12 months.

“We now expect more price upside to materialize before the halving than we previously did, specifically via the earlier-than-expected introduction of US spot ETFs,” Geoff Kenrick, Standard Chartered’s head of EM FX Research, West and Crypto Research, wrote.

Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX has been given the green light to sell around $873 million of trust assets, with proceeds used to repay creditors impacted by the exchange’s collapse in 2022, according to a Nov. 29 filing in a Delaware bankruptcy court.

The $873 million in assets will be sourced from FTX’s stakes in various trusts issued by crypto asset manager Grayscale Investments, valued at $807 million, and custody service provider Bitwise, valued at $66 million.

While the court document references a total of $744 million in assets, this is due to the valuation figure being as of Oct. 25, 2023. The assets have increased in value since. 

The approval comes nearly four weeks after FTX debtors filed a motion to Judge John Dorsey on Nov. 3 requesting the sale of the six cryptocurrency trusts, including the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) and Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund.

FTX currently owns over 22 million units of GBTC, Grayscale’s flagship Bitcoin product, now worth $691 million, while its 6.3 million shares of ETHE are now worth around $106 million.

More than three-quarters of all blockchain games launched in the last five years are dead in the water, according to a recent study from CoinGecko.

Out of 2,817 games launched between 2018 and 2023, which were included in the study, only 690 of them still have a somewhat active player base.

CoinGecko defines a “failed” Web3 game as one where the 14-day moving average number of active users drops 99% or more from its peak.

While 2021 saw the highest number of blockchain games launched in a single year with 738 games, the following year — marred by major crypto collapses, saw the highest number of games to fizzle out, with 742 failing in a single year.

This puts the average failure rate of Web3 games at around 80% for any given year since 2018, according to CoinGecko.

The demand for institutional investors for Bitcoin (BTC) became evident on Nov. 10 as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Bitcoin futures flipped Binance’s BTC futures markets in terms of size. According to BTC derivatives metrics, those investors are showing strong confidence in Bitcoin’s potential to break above the $40,000 mark in the short term.

CME’s current Bitcoin futures open interest stands at $4.35 billion, the highest since November 2021 when Bitcoin hit its all-time high of $69,000 — a clear indication of heightened interest. But is it enough to justify further price gains?

CME’s remarkable growth and the spot Bitcoin ETF speculation 

The impressive 125% surge in CME’s BTC futures open interest from $1.93 billion in mid-October is undoubtedly tied to the anticipation of the approval of a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). However, it’s important to note that there’s no direct correlation between this movement and the actions of market makers or issuers. Cryptocurrency analyst JJcycles raised this hypothesis in a Nov. 26 social media post.

To avoid the high costs associated with futures contracts, institutional investors have various options. For instance, they could opt for CME Bitcoin options, which require less capital and offer similar leveraged long exposure. Additionally, regulated ETF and exchange-traded notes (ETN) trading in regions like Canada, Brazil and Europe provide alternatives.

It seems somewhat naive to believe that the world’s largest asset managers would take risky gambles using derivatives contracts on a decision that depends on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and is not expected until mid-January. Yet, the undeniable growth in CME Bitcoin futures open interest is hard evidence that institutional investors are setting their sights on the cryptocurrency.

The crypto market is down today as a slew of regulatory enforcement events weigh on Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and altcoin prices. The markets continue to reel since the Nov. 21 Department of Justice (DOJ) settlement against Changpeng “CZ” Zhao and Binance to the tune of a $4.3 billion fine.

Price action across the crypto market remains tilted to the downside as investors and money managers further digest the potential fallout from increased regulatory actions taken against the industry.

US-led regulatory pressure against crypto is in full-steam-ahead mode

The cryptocurrency industry and regulators have a long history of not getting along either due to various misconceptions or mistrust over the actual use case of digital assets.

On Nov. 21, the DOJ announced enforcement actions and a settlement related to CZ and Binance in which both pleaded guilty.

According to the settlement, Binance will pay $4.3 billion in fines, and CZ will pay $159 million in penalties. The settlement covered civil regulatory enforcement actions by government departments, including the U.S. Treasury and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Bitcoin (BTC) is trying to sustain above the overhead resistance of $38,000 for the second consecutive day and start the next leg of the uptrend. The excitement among market observers may have increased after the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) delayed its decision on the applications of Franklin Templeton and Hashdex exchange-traded funds.

Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart speculated in a X (formerly Twitter) post that the SEC may have taken this step “to line every applicant up for potential approval by the Jan. 10, 2024 deadline.”

While many analysts believe that the ETF listing will be a watershed moment for Bitcoin, Genesis Trading head of derivatives Joshua Lim cautioned in a X post that traditional finance investors have already bought the rumor and may exit the trade close to the ETF announcement when retail tries to get in.

However, the macroeconomic conditions in early 2024 may limit the downside. Pershing Square Capital Management CEO and founder Bill Ackman said in an interview with Bloomberg that the U.S. Federal Reserve will cut rates sooner than people expect. He anticipates rate cuts to start in Q1 instead of the market expectations of the middle of the year.

Could Bitcoin and altcoins witness a shallow correction before resuming their uptrend?