Bitcoin is about to rip.
Analysts at Bitwise, Bernstein, and Standard Chartered all expect Bitcoin to reach $200,000 by the end of the year, with governments pumping liquidity into markets and cutting cumbersome red tape that was said to hold the industry back.
Here are the five key drivers analysts say will fuel crypto markets until 2026.
Crypto rules of the road
US President Donald Trump is a common denominator for the industry’s bullishness around Bitcoin and crypto markets as a whole.
Having thundered into his second presidency on a pro-crypto platform, Trump spent his first five months in office issuing a barrage of executive orders, hosting gala dinners, and encouraging regulators to halt enforcement actions against crypto companies.
He has also thrown his support behind a wave of bills aimed at providing legal clarity on how digital assets should be regulated in the US. Two of them are now on the cusp of being approved.
If passed, the Genius Act and Clarity Act will bring clarity around custody, trading, asset classification, and stablecoins, while making it easier for financial institutions to hold Bitcoin.
Dollars onchain
Stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies pegged to fiat currencies such as the dollar or euro, have become a market worth over $255 billion, according to DefiLlama data.
The success of Circle’s IPO, stablecoin integrations by fintech giants PayPal and Stripe, inbound legislation, and the growing number of banks inching closer to launching their stablecoins have ramped up the buzz around these assets.
Traders and analysts alike expect the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates at some point within the next six months.
Lower interest rates incentivise investors to tap into riskier assets, such as cryptocurrencies.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell remains reluctant to cap rates, but he’s increasingly had to spar with other policymakers at the central bank about whether to cut rates this summer.
Still, interest rate traders only give it a 5% chance that the Fed will cut rates in July.
Those chances jump to 63% in September and 83% in October.
Crypto is no longer just for anonymous online degens, but is increasingly becoming an investment target for traditional investors, such as pension funds.
He’s not alone in that forecast.
Geoff Kendrick, global head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered, the UK bank, says pension funds and sovereign wealth funds’ embrace of cryptocurrencies will drive Bitcoin to $500,000 by the end of Trump’s second term as president.
The growing interest is evident in the sustained demand for US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, which have attracted nearly $15.7 billion in net inflows this year, according to CoinShares.
Strategy copycats
Increasing institutional interest will also be prevalent in the growing popularity of Strategy copycats, Duong said.
Michael Saylor’s software company Strategy, formerly known as Microstrategy, has added over $14 billion worth of Bitcoin in 2025. Others have followed suit.
Over 250 companies have added Bitcoin to their treasuries so far, according to Bitcointreasuries.net.
A slew of other companies have also added altcoins such as XRP, Solana, and Binance’s BNB token to their treasuries.
Duong also suggested that the Strategy copycats may benefit from institutional investors’ growing appetite for digital assets.
Family offices and pension funds, which have been unable to convince their board to tap into exchange-traded funds or the assets directly, can instead use the shares in those copycats as a proxy, he said.
Until then, though, market soothsayers may need to wait a bit longer.
Bitcoin trades at about $108,000, just 3% from its previous record high.
