Bitcoin to $500K by 2028: Standard Chartered's Bold Prediction

Standard Chartered, a British multinational bank, has made headlines with a bold long-term forecast for Bitcoin, predicting it could reach $500,000 by 2028. The bank's analyst, Geoffrey Kendrick, expects this price surge to be driven by increased investor access and decreasing volatility.

Kendrick forecasts that Bitcoin will hit $200,000 in 2025, $300,000 in 2026, $400,000 in 2027, and finally reach $500,000 in 2028, before stabilizing the following year. This prediction suggests a 407% increase from Bitcoin's current price of $98,600, which would give it a market cap of $10.5 trillion, surpassing Apple and Microsoft, and accounting for about half of gold's market cap.

Standard Chartered sees significant growth potential for Bitcoin, largely due to the increased investor access following the introduction of Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the U.S. in January 2024. This development is expected to drive further demand and boost Bitcoin's value.

The bank also predicts that Bitcoin's volatility might continue decreasing in the future due to improving financial infrastructure and the maturation of the fledgling ETF sector. The 30-day Bitcoin volatility index recently surged to a new year-to-date peak of 2.04 after the cryptocurrency experienced abnormal volatility earlier this week. Despite this, Kendrick believes that Bitcoin's price could reach $200,000 by the end of 2025.