Standard Chartered’s Kendrick says bitcoin bottom is “almost in”
He pointed to near-flat spot bitcoin ETF holdings and a potential Strategy buyback after a 32 BTC sale.
Standard Chartered digital assets research head Geoffrey Kendrick told clients on June 4 that bitcoin’s bottom is “almost in” after a liquidation-heavy sell-off week. His case leans on resilient spot bitcoin ETF holdings and the likelihood that Strategy repurchases more BTC than it sold.
Key Takeaways
- Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick said bitcoin’s bottom is “almost in,” arguing spot bitcoin ETF holdings held up through the drawdown.
- Spot bitcoin ETF holdings were described as moving from about 682,000 BTC to a peak and then settling around 674,000 BTC, which Kendrick characterized as broadly flat.
- Kendrick tied the week’s “proximate cause” to Strategy selling 32 BTC and outlined potential repurchase scenarios of roughly 320 BTC or 3,200 BTC.
- About $1.5 billion in futures liquidations hit during the week, with BTC around $62,960 and ETH around $1,755 at the time of writing.
Standard Chartered: BTC bottom “almost in” after a liquidation-heavy week
Standard Chartered’s Global Head of Digital Assets Research Geoffrey Kendrick said bitcoin is close to printing a bottom after what he described as a brutal week for crypto.
At the time of writing, bitcoin traded around $62,960, down roughly 5.6% on the day, 14% on the week, 22% over the past month, and more than 40% over the past year. Ether traded around $1,755, down 6.5% on the day and 26% over the past month, per The Block’s price page.
Kendrick’s tone was blunt in the client note: “This week has been painful in crypto. There is really no other way of putting it,” he wrote. The call matters for traders because it reframes the drawdown as a potential “buying zone” while still acknowledging the market can probe lower.
ETF holdings stayed near-flat: the key change versus February’s capitulation warning
The pivot is a direct reversal from Kendrick’s Feb. 12 warning of “pain and final capitulation,” when he cut near-term targets to $50,000 for bitcoin and $1,400 for ether and flagged spot ETF capitulation as a key downside risk.
In the June 4 note, that capitulation risk is presented as not having shown up in the data he’s watching. Kendrick said spot bitcoin ETF holdings moved from about 682,000 BTC to a peak and then settled around 674,000 BTC, which he interpreted as broadly flat over the period.
“This tells me that ETF holdings are more structurally strong than I had feared in February,” Kendrick wrote. The thesis is less about a clean macro turn and more about market structure: if the ETF holder base does not become a forced seller during stress, the sell-off has to be absorbed elsewhere, typically by leveraged positioning and marginal holders.
Derivatives stress check: $1.5B liquidations and what it says about positioning
Kendrick cited about $1.5 billion in futures liquidations during the week, framing the move as a leverage flush rather than a slow grind lower. He compared the scale to prior liquidation episodes spanning Jan. 29–31 and Feb. 3–6.
That matters because liquidation windows often compress selling into a shorter time frame, clearing out crowded leverage and reducing the pool of “vulnerable longs” that can be forced out on the next downtick. Kendrick still flagged residual downside risk below $60,000, but the note’s logic implies the market has already paid part of the leverage bill.
Strategy’s 32 BTC sale and the buyback scenarios Kendrick says could matter next
Kendrick pinned the week’s “proximate cause” on Strategy selling 32 BTC, calling the timing “unfortunate” and saying it “fit the DAT naysayer thesis perfectly.”
The near-term catalyst he highlighted is whether Strategy reverses that sale with a larger repurchase. Kendrick pointed to a precedent from Dec. 22, 2022, when Strategy sold 704 BTC for tax optimization and bought back 810 BTC two days later.
This time, Kendrick outlined two scenarios: a roughly 10x repurchase of about 320 BTC or a roughly 100x repurchase of around 3,200 BTC. He argued confirmation of renewed buying could act as a tentative signal that a low has printed. The key caveat is that this is expectation, not confirmation, and the market is trading the possibility of a headline.
Why “accumulation” beats a perfect bottom call here
I read Kendrick’s shift as a structural-demand-held-up argument, not a claim that the tape can’t break lower. The ETF holdings staying near-flat around ~674,000 BTC after starting near ~682,000 BTC is the evidence he’s leaning on, and it’s a cleaner signal than trying to infer “capitulation” from price alone.
The threshold that matters is whether ETF holdings stay pinned near that ~674,000 BTC area while BTC defends the $60,000 zone and liquidation pressure cools. If those hold and Strategy confirms buying that looks closer to the 320 BTC or 3,200 BTC scenarios, the setup starts to look structural rather than narrative-driven, because it would pair reduced leverage with visible spot demand support.
