Standard Chartered is maintaining its end-2026 Bitcoin price forecast of $100,000.
The recent weakness of the bank, driven by Strategy Inc. (NASDAQ: MSTR), reflects a failure to explain a strategic shift rather than any deterioration in the company’s balance sheet.
Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank’s global head of digital assets research, wrote in a note that Strategy’s actions are muddying Bitcoin’s near-term prospects.
“I see what is happening at MSTR right now as a communication challenge,” Kendrick wrote.
He added it is “nothing more.”
Strategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin with 843,775 coins, appears to be pivoting from its “never sell bitcoin” mantra to a more complex approach, Kendrick wrote.
Between 2020 and mid-2025, the company’s mNAV, enterprise value divided by the value of its Bitcoin holdings.
It traded well above 1.0, letting Strategy issue shares, buy Bitcoin, and increase its own value by more than the value of the newly issued stock.
With mNAV now near 1.0, that arithmetic no longer works, and Strategy is instead positioning its bitcoin as backing for STRC, its perpetual preferred stock.
Related: Standard Chartered predicts Treasury bill demand surge to $1 trillion
STRC’s slide is driving the pressure on Bitcoin
STRC pays a 12% annual dividend, settled semi-monthly in cash, with the rate adjusted monthly to keep the security trading near its $100 par value, and has around $10 billion notional outstanding, the largest of Strategy’s financial instruments.
A negative feedback loop between Strategy’s actions and Bitcoin prices took hold once STRC broke sharply from par. It hit an intraday low of $71.25 on June 26, a divergence that began after Strategy disclosed on June 1 that it had sold 32 BTC the previous week.
STRC still trades around $90, with Strategy’s USD reserve for dividend payments standing at $2.55 billion, equal to 17.4 months of coverage.
Popular on TheStreet Roundtable:
Why Standard Chartered still calls Bitcoin a buy
Strategy has announced a monetization program allowing it to sell Bitcoin from time to time, including to generate up to $1.25 billion in proceeds for the reserve.
Kendrick argued that effective signaling of that arrangement should remove the need for further sales by supporting STRC’s price, comparing it to a central bank’s “whatever it takes” credibility.
He expects STRC, which he called heavily overcollateralized, to trade back toward $100 soon, limiting further downward pressure on Bitcoin, and called Bitcoin at $64,000 “a screaming buy.”
Source: Original Article
