Standard Chartered reiterates that the Bitcoin price is still on track to balloon to $500,000 before President Donald Trump leaves office. The British multinational bank said sovereign entities increased their indirect exposure to the world’s largest cryptocurrency in the first quarter by buying shares in Strategy (MSTR), noting that the trend bolsters its half-million BTC price projection. Increasing Allocations To MSTR Is Bullish For Bitcoin Roughly 12 government entities increased their exposure to MSTR in Q1, holding 31,000 Bitcoin worth of Strategy shares, Standard Chartered’s global head of digital assets research, Geoffrey Kendrick, wrote in a Tuesday note to clients. Although investors can gain exposure to Bitcoin through spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that were greenlighted in the U.S. in 2024, government entities’ increased Strategy holdings reflect “widening structural demand” for Bitcoin and Strategy’s continued use as a Bitcoin proxy, Kendrick explained. “We believe that in some cases, MSTR holdings by government entities reflect a desire to gain Bitcoin exposure where local regulations do not allow direct BTC holdings,” he added. Government entities upped their MSTR holdings during the first quarter, with Norway’s Government Pension Fund, the Swiss National Bank, and South Korea’s pension and investment bodies each adding the equivalent of 700 BTC. Meanwhile, United States state retirement funds across California, New York, North Carolina, and Kentucky added a combined 1,000 BTC equivalent. Sweden and Liechtenstein made minor increases, while France and Saudi Arabia took first-time positions, albeit tiny, indicating growing sovereign interest in indirect BTC exposure, according to Kendrick. “The latest 13F data from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) supports our core thesis that Bitcoin will reach the $500,000 level before Trump leaves office as it attracts a wider range of institutional buyers,” the banker opined. The latest first quarter 13F filings — reports that institutional investment managers with at least $100 million in assets under management are required to file each quarter — indicate that sovereigns’ exposure to Bitcoin via spot exchange-traded funds “was disappointing at first glance,” while increasing MSTR holdings were “very encouraging,” Standard Chartered said. The most notable ETF move came from the State of Wisconsin Investment Board, which sold off its entire 3,400 BTC-equivalent stake in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust. Kendrick argued that these 13F filings are the best way to test “our thesis that BTC will attract new institutional buyer types as the market matures,” pushing the price of the asset to the $500,000 milestone. “When institutions buy Bitcoin, prices tend to rise,” he summarized.
