Standard Chartered maintained its end-of-2026 Bitcoin expectation of $100,000 in Notice to investors on Friday, arguing that the recent weakness indicates failure and The way reporting system changes rather than any damage to the company’s website.
Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank’s global head of digital asset research, wrote that Strategy – the largest owner of Bitcoin, with 843,775 coins, more than 4% of the 21 million that will exist – “seems to be moving from the ‘don’t sell Bitcoin’ mantra to a more difficult path.”
Clear communication of that pivot, he wrote, will determine how much BTC moves higher.
Between 2020 and mid-2025, Strategy’s mNAV – business value divided by Bitcoin price – traded above 1.0. The fund allows the company to issue shares, buy Bitcoin, and increase its value beyond the cost of new stock. Proving the market would never sell was part of the stock model.
With mNAV close to 1.0, that math doesn’t work anymore. Kendrick said Strategy is looking to hold Bitcoin as a support for STRC, a long-term preferred stock, which functions as a bond.
Picture of STRC
STRC pays a dividend of 12% per year, fixed twice a month as an investment, and resets the price every month so that the security is close to its value of $100. It has about $10 billion in outstanding assets, the largest asset that the Strategy has used.
Disrupting the negative sentiment took hold when STRC broke out of the price, hitting an intraday low of $71.25 on June 26. The divergence began after the announcement on June 1 that Strategy had sold 32 BTC in the previous week. STRC is still trading at around $90, according to Standard Chartered. The USD reserve for STRC shares is $2.55 billion, or 17.4 months of issuance.
Bitcoin is a ‘screaming buy’
The problem with “never trading,” Kendrick argued, is that it limits how Bitcoin is recognized. The method is done he announced an investment program that allows it to sell BTC from time to time, including a total of 1.25 billion dollars in reserves.
Based on Bitcoin’s support, STRC is stable and is expected to return to $100, the note said. Kendrick likened the approach to a big bank promising to do “whatever it takes” and, in fairness, doing nothing.
Effective exposure, he wrote, should eliminate the need for a Strategy to sell any Bitcoin. Kendrick sees this episode as noise rather than a signal about BTC’s medium-term trajectory. At $64,000, he calls the money a “screaming buy.”
The way sold 3,588 BTC about $216 million last week, the most spent to date, using the proceeds to help distribute preferred stock and replenish the stockpile. JPMorgan analysts he said The sales process creates a “two-way risk” in creating a strategy for both buyers and sellers.
Strategy shares near $98 on Thursday. BTC traded above $64,400 on Friday.
