06/15 update below. This post was originally published on June 13
Bitcoin has struggled in recent weeks as the initial public offering (IPO) of Elon Musk’s SpaceX sparks extreme market volatility.
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The bitcoin price has dropped to 2026 lows of just under $60,000 per bitcoin, plunging by half from its October peak of $126,000 amid a BlackRock “bloodbath” warning.
Now, as traders bet only one scenario can save bitcoin, crypto traders are hoping a rebound in BlackRock’s exchange-traded fund (ETF) inflows will mean bitcoin’s price winter is over.
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BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink has led the asset manager’s push into bitcoin, helping to spur the bitcoin price to all-time highs in recent years.
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“Winter is over,” Standard Chartered’s global head of crypto research
Geoffrey Kendrick wrote in an emailed note. “Welcome back to crypto Spring.”
Kendrick named three catalysts that he said would help propel the bitcoin price higher: oil prices falling back toward where they were before the U.S. war in Iran, Michael Saylor’s Strategy buying more bitcoin, and a positive bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) inflow day.
“I think we have now seen the low in crypto asset prices for the cycle,” Kendrick said. “That would be $59,000 for bitcoin, 53% down from $126,000 high.”
06/15 update: Following Kendrick’s prediction, the oil price has continued to fall on hopes that the U.S. and Iran will this week sign a peace deal and Michael Saylor has signalled his Strategy bitcoin-buying vehicle will announce a fresh bitcoin acquisition today.
“Still adding dots,” Saylor posted to X in his usual Sunday teaser that has previously heralded a Monday bitcoin acquisition announcement.
“All three confirmatory signals I had mentioned below as wanting to see have worked,” Kendrick said in an emailed note after Strategy announced it bought almost 1,600 bitcoin for $100 million.
“There has been a lot of chat about bitcoin making lower highs. So breaking above the $83,000 region from early May will be the next critical confirmation needed.”
However, even as the bitcoin price climbs toward $70,000 per bitcoin, some crypto traders and market watchers remain fearful that the bitcoin price rally may be short-lived.
“Trump just handed the markets the biggest disinflationary event of 2026, and bitcoin shot up on the news. But I’d be cautious about assuming this is the end of bitcoin’s woes,” Nic Puckrin, macro and cross-asset analyst and founder of Coin Bureau, said in emailed comments, pointing to investor preference for artificial intelligence-linked trades, exchange-traded fund (ETF) inflows still “sluggish at best,” the unresolved security threat from quantum computing and Strategy’s failure to boost its share price back to parity with its bitcoin holdings.
“There’s more weighing down the price than just the Iran war, and those headwinds remain, which is why the bounce has been so lackluster. So far, I’m not seeing anything in the chart that would suggest the return of the structural bull trend. Bitcoin hasn’t recovered any of the key levels I’ve been watching, like the 200-week exponential moving average (EMA). If it confidently climbs above $70,000 and reclaims previous support levels, like $74,000, that would give me more confidence. Until then, this is looking more like a dead cat bounce.”
This week, traders are closely watching for BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Premium Income exchange-traded fund (ETF), using the ticker BITA, to begin trading.
The filing “typically means launch in one week,” Eric Balchunas, an ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, posted to X.
On Friday, U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs, led by BlackRock’s $50 billion fund, collectively pulled in almost $86 million in net inflows, equivalent to around 1,350 bitcoin, according to SoSo Value data. BlackRock’s IBIT attracted nearly $58 million of the total.
“The SpaceX IPO may sound the end of ETF selling (anecdotally bitcoin ETF holders have been selling to free up cash to enter the IPO),” Kendrick said. “Recent weeks have been amongst sharpest ETF selling since inception.”
The day of bitcoin ETF inflows marked a reversal in a long run of outflows, with the U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs charting $7.6 billion in net outflows since October last year, with $3 billion of that coming through the first six months of 2026.
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The bitcoin price has crashed since October last year, with some hoping this week marks a turning point for the bitcoin price.
Forbes Digital Assets
The oil price has meanwhile dropped after Iran’s foreign minister said a deal with the U.S. to end the war is close and includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz oil shipping lane.
This week, bitcoin and crypto traders will be watching for whether Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the world’s largest corporate holder of bitcoin with more than 800,000 coins, continues to buy more bitcoin following a sale at the end of May.
Saylor returned to buying bitcoin in early June, signalling to some that the worst of the 2026 bitcoin price crash could be over.
“This bear market feels a lot like 2022, but with one massive differentiator: the drawdown is much shallower,” CK Zheng, former global head of risk for Credit Suisse and founder of ZX Squared Capital, said in emailed comments.
“From the October 2025 peak, the market has corrected by roughly 50%, a far cry from the devastating 78% crash four years ago. The entire asset class is vastly more mature today, supported by institutional frameworks that have driven widespread adoption of crypto ETFs, regulatory progress through measures such as the Genius Act and advancement of the Clarity Act, and corporate backstops in the form of digital asset treasury companies acting as programmatic marginal buyers when markets come under stress.”