Standard Chartered Bank maintained its forecast for the price of Bitcoin at the end of 2026 at $100,000 in a… Note investors on Friday, arguing that the recent weakness reflects failure from before strategy To explain the strategic shift rather than any deterioration in the company’s balance sheet.
The strategy — the largest holder of bitcoin, with 843,775 coins, more than 4% of the 21 million that will ever exist — “appears to be shifting from its slogan of ‘never sell bitcoin’ to a more sophisticated approach,” wrote Jeffrey Kendrick, the bank’s global head of digital assets research.
Clear communication of this pivot will determine how quickly pressure on Bitcoin rises, he wrote.
Between 2020 and mid-2025, the strategy Marine navigation – Enterprise value divided by the value of its Bitcoin – It traded above 1.0. This premium allows the company to issue shares, buy Bitcoin, and increase its value by more than the value of the new stock. Convincing the market that it would never sell was the pregnant part of the model.
As mNAV approaches 1.0, this calculation no longer works. Kendrick said the strategy is toward holding bitcoin as a backstop for STRC, its perennial favorite stock, which acts as a credit product.
STRC feedback loop
STRC pays a 12% annual dividend, settled twice a month in cash, with the rate reset every month to keep the security near its face value of $100. Its notional outstanding volume is approximately $10 billion, and is the largest instrument deployed by the strategy.
A negative feedback loop took hold once STRC broke out of the price, hitting an intraday low of $71.25 on June 26. The divergence began after the revelation on June 1 that Strategy had sold 32 BTC the previous week. STRC stock is still trading near $90, according to Standard Chartered. STRC’s USD dividend reserve is $2.55 billion, or 17.4 months of coverage.
Bitcoin is a ‘stark buy’
The problem with the phrase “never sell” is that it restricts how Bitcoin is viewed, Kendrick said. The strategy has Announce A monetization program allows it to sell Bitcoin from time to time, including up to $1.25 billion in reserve proceeds.
Due to Bitcoin’s support, STRC is over-collateralized and should trade back toward $100, the note said. Kendrick compared the mechanism to a central bank that promised to do “whatever it takes” and, through credibility, never have to act.
He wrote that effective signals should eliminate the strategy’s need to sell any Bitcoin. Kendrick is treating the incident as hype rather than a signal about Bitcoin’s medium-term direction. At $64,000, he called the coin a “stark buy.”
strategy Sold 3,588 Bitcoin For about $216 million last week, the largest disposition to date, using the proceeds to fund preferred stock dividends and replenish reserves. JPMorgan analysts He said A formal selling policy introduces “avoidable two-way risk” by making the strategy a buyer and seller.
Shares of the strategy are trading near $98 on Thursday. BTC traded at more than $64,400 on Friday.
