$150k BTC or Bear Market Ahead?

In the year Looking ahead to 2026, Bitcoin (BTC) predictions conflict with historical chart patterns and evolving market realities, as traditional finance plays a larger role in the cryptocurrency space.

Main Receptors:

Standard Chartered and Bernstein predict bitcoin will reach $150,000 by 2026, upending earlier high targets due to lower ETF inflows.

Grayscale predicts a new BTC all-time high in H1/2026 driven by institutional adoption ending the traditional four-year cycle.

A technical point that could drop to $40,000-$70,000 if historical patterns repeat.

Expert views on the price of Bitcoin going into 2026

The post-2024 half-cycle has produced significant gains at the beginning of the year; However, consolidation and volatility towards the end of 2025 caused them to pull back amid macroeconomic uncertainty and volatility in ETF flows.

Bitcoin price fell to $80,500 in November, a 47% drop from an all-time high of $126,000 in October.

Analysts are mostly bullish for 2026, even if their predictions are compared to the previous euphoria.

Standard Chartered After issuing a call for moonshots in 2024 and early 2025, he lowered his 2026 Bitcoin target from $300,000 to $150,000.

Related: Coinbase ‘cautiously optimistic' as crypto nears institutional tipping point in 2026

Bernstein analysts also expect Bitcoin to reach $150,000 by the end of 2026, with an expected price of $200,000 by the end of 2027.

Although the recent decline has prompted them to scale back their $200,000 peak forecast this year, they maintain the view that bitcoin has broken out of its historical four-year cyclical pattern, indicating a more sustainable growth trajectory.

The strategy's executive chairman, Michael Saylor, predicts that Bitcoin will reach $150,000 by 2026, despite the recent price correction, arguing that the cryptocurrency is “going down a lot”, contrary to the views of many crypto analysts.

More optimistic views like Fundstrat see a $200,000–$250,000 potential, while conservative estimates hover around $110,000–$135,000.

Polymarket predicts a 41% chance BTC will hit $130,000 and a 25% chance it will hit $150,000 before the end of 2026.

Based on the current odds, there is a 79% chance that the price of Bitcoin will regain $100,000 by 2026 and an 80% chance that it will fall to $75,000.

In general, consensus is biased upward, supported by structural changes rather than traditional boom-bust cycles.

BTC price technicals conflict with bullish forecasts.

The patterns of the last half of the decline suggest that the price of BTC will reach its peak in 12-18 months, as the reduced supply takes effect – and this is starting to be reflected in the charts.

Analyst and trader Rect Capital indicated that the current cycle is more than 93 percent complete and the market may reach its peak in Q4/2025.

Other technical indicators also reflect bear market conditions, suggesting that Bitcoin's four-year cycle remains intact and that BTC may extend its lows into 2026.

Bitcoin's weekly chart shows that the SuperTrend indicator is flashing a bearish signal, confirming a “sell” signal in BTC below its 50-week moving averages (MAs) (see chart below), marking the end of bull markets in history.

These were reinforced by a bearish cross from the moving average converging divergence indicator (MACD) a few days later.

During the bear markets of 2018 and 2022, they showed declines of 84% and 77%, as shown in the chart above, followed by preliminary confirmations from these three indicators.

According to Benjamin Cowen, founder and CEO of IntoCryptover, the BTC/USD pair will probably return to the 200-day SMA around $108,000.

“All previous cyclical bear markets have been confirmed at the lower highs of the 200D SMA.”

As Cointelegraph reports, predicting 2026 to be a bearish year, Bitcoin's 200-day moving average turned bearish in November when a “death cross” dipped below its short-term 50-day moving average.

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