Standard Chartered's head of digital assets research Geoffrey Kendrick has escalated his bottom call, arguing that Bitcoin may have already put in its low for the current market cycle. What makes this call different from the many bottom calls that have circulated throughout this correction is that Kendrick set out a specific, falsifiable framework just last Friday — and by Monday, every condition in that framework had been met.
The three signals: all confirmed within 72 hours
Last Friday, Kendrick told clients he believed Bitcoin's decline to roughly $59,000 represented the cycle low, but outlined three developments he wanted to see before gaining more confidence: renewed Strategy purchases, a return to positive ETF inflows, and continued weakness in oil prices.
By Monday, all three had materialized. Strategy disclosed it purchased another 1,587 BTC last week for approximately $100 million at an average of $63,024 — funded through its at-the-market stock program rather than touching its Bitcoin or cash reserves, and lifting total holdings to 846,842 BTC. US spot Bitcoin ETFs posted net inflows of $86 million on Friday, following a stretch of notable redemptions that had totaled $5.72 billion since mid-May. And oil prices continued moving lower, falling 5% to around $80 on the confirmed US-Iran deal — reducing concerns that elevated energy costs would push inflation and bond yields higher.
"Winter is over. Welcome back to crypto Spring," Kendrick wrote.
The ETF inflow context: ending the worst outflow streak on record
The $86 million ETF inflow figure carries outsized significance given what preceded it. Kendrick had noted that the recent selling was among the sharpest since spot Bitcoin ETFs debuted in January 2024 — and he had previously floated, while describing it as anecdotal, that some investors may have been raising cash specifically to participate in the SpaceX IPO. With SpaceX now trading well above its IPO price and Friday's inflow figure breaking the outflow streak, this anecdotal explanation gains additional credibility: if IPO-related selling was a temporary, one-time capital reallocation rather than a structural rejection of Bitcoin exposure, its conclusion would naturally coincide with flows normalizing.
The improving structural backdrop
Beyond the three specific signals, Kendrick's framework benefits from broader structural tailwinds that have developed over recent weeks. Easing regulatory barriers for crypto derivatives in the US have supported sentiment, with Kraken launching perpetual futures to US clients earlier today — joining the wave of newly-regulated derivatives products that John Palmer described as following the same adoption curve spot Bitcoin ETFs traced after their January 2024 launch. Bitcoin has also continued attracting corporate treasury allocations, with SpaceX's $1.3 billion BTC reserve now under public market scrutiny following its IPO and Metaplanet's acquisition of Siiibo Securities signaling expansion of Bitcoin-focused financial infrastructure.
The one test that remains: $83,000
Despite all three conditions being met, Kendrick identified one major test still outstanding. Market observers have pointed to Bitcoin's pattern of making lower highs during recent rallies — a technical structure that, if it continues, would suggest the broader downtrend remains intact regardless of any individual bounce's magnitude.
To invalidate that concern, Kendrick said Bitcoin needs to break above the $83,000 level reached in early May. At $66,300 as of writing — up about 1% over 24 hours — Bitcoin would need to rally approximately 25% from current levels to clear that bar. If it does, Kendrick believes the case that a new uptrend is underway becomes much stronger.
This $83,000 level is significant beyond Kendrick's framework alone. It represents the level from which Bitcoin's entire May-June correction began — the point at which the April CPI shock first triggered the $5.4 billion (later $5.72 billion) ETF outflow cascade. Reclaiming it would mean Bitcoin has fully round-tripped the macro-driven correction that defined the past six weeks.
Armstrong: bottoms at $60,000, "new digital gold"
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong reinforced Kendrick's framing on Monday. "My instinct is we probably have bottomed at this point, maybe at the sixty K number, but nobody can say for sure," Armstrong said in a video posted on X, adding that he remains long Bitcoin and expects significantly higher prices by 2030. "I think bitcoin is the new digital gold," he said.
Armstrong pointed to Bitcoin's four-year halving cycle as his framework — a pattern that has historically alternated between bull and bear markets at roughly regular intervals. With Bitcoin's October 2025 all-time high near $126,000 and the asset now roughly 50% below that level, Armstrong's cycle-based reasoning would suggest the current drawdown is consistent with prior post-halving corrections.
Armstrong had separately argued on June 5 — near the depths of the selloff — that Bitcoin's price decline was masking broader health in the crypto market. "Derivatives, stablecoins, prediction markets are all up," he wrote at the time. "It will take some time for this to sink in." That framing looks more credible in retrospect given the derivatives data from earlier in the week showing crypto futures markets pausing rather than panicking even at the depths of the selloff, and given Kalshi's prediction markets crossing $1 billion in volume within its first week.
The caveat that hasn't gone away
Both Kendrick's and Armstrong's bottom calls come with the same caveat the underlying data has carried throughout. CryptoQuant noted last week that while Bitcoin has entered a historical value zone near its realized price of approximately $53,600, demand conditions remained deeply negative and ETF flows had not yet stabilized at that time. Friday's $86 million inflow is a single data point — meaningful as a reversal signal, but not yet the kind of sustained, multi-week inflow trend that would constitute the "stabilization" CryptoQuant specified as necessary.
A price floor and a confirmed recovery are two different things. Bitcoin's technical picture — a weak RSI of 37, a downtrend of lower highs, support successfully defended at the $60,000 Fibonacci level — places the asset at a genuine inflection point rather than a confirmed reversal. The combination of Tuesday's BOJ decision (with yen shorts at a nine-year high echoing the setup before 2024's crash), Wednesday's FOMC meeting under Chairman Warsh, and Friday's Geneva signing for the Iran deal means the coming days will provide the additional macro catalysts needed before a clearer direction settles — including, potentially, the test of whether Bitcoin can begin working toward Kendrick's $83,000 threshold or whether the lower-highs pattern reasserts itself once again.
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