Demand from financial institutions could push the price of Bitcoin (BTC) as high as $200,000 per coin in 2025, according to two research reports reviewed by Cointelegraph. 

Analysts from Standard Chartered and Intellectia AI said institutional Bitcoin demand from exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and traders seeking to hedge against macroeconomic risk could cause Bitcoin’s price to more than double this year.

“While the forecast is optimistic, it’s also conditional. Any black swan — from a major regulatory clampdown to a geopolitical event — can disrupt trajectories,” Fei Chen, Intellectia AI’s chief investment strategist, told Cointelegraph. 

Bitcoin ETF inflows since January 2024. Source: CoinGlass

Related: US Bitcoin ETFs clock biggest inflows since January as crypto markets gain

Bullish sentiment

The reports come as Bitcoin broke past $90,000 on April 22 for the first time in six weeks, reflecting traders embracing Bitcoin and gold as potential hedges against looming trade wars and geopolitical volatility. 

The price action followed the biggest daily net inflows into US spot Bitcoin ETFs since January. 

The US’s 11 spot BTC funds collectively pulled more than $380 million in net inflows on April 21, according to CoinGlass data.

Intellectia AI said institutional demand drivers — including corporate Bitcoin buyers and exchanges such as Coinbase and Kraken — could continue to propel positive price action. 

Corporate Bitcoin treasuries already hold nearly $65 billion worth of BTC, according to data from Bitcointreasuries.net.

Hedgers still prefer gold over Bitcoin. Source: Binance Research

Hedging or speculation?

Gold and BTC “appear to have become more important components of investors’ portfolios structurally” as they increasingly seek to hedge against geopolitical risk and inflation, investment bank JP Morgan said in a January research note. 

However, Bitcoin’s correlation with gold — historically a preferred hedge against macroeconomic uncertainty — has been low since US President Donald Trump announced sweeping import tariffs on April 2, Binance Research said on April 7. 

In fact, Bitcoin has been more closely correlated with equities, Binance said. 

Paradoxically, sustained ETF inflows could further diminish Bitcoin’s status as a macroeconomic hedge, eroding one of its most attractive traits for institutions, Spencer Yang, a core contributor for crypto infrastructure project Fractal Bitcoin, told Cointelegraph. 

“Despite growing institutional interest, Bitcoin’s long-term resilience won’t be secured by balance sheet optics alone — it depends on real usage,” Yang said. 

“That means people actually transacting, building, and experimenting on the network — not just holding BTC as a speculative asset.”

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