- Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick believes the bitcoin bottom is almost in, citing three specific market signals.
- Bitcoin ETF holdings have barely moved despite $5 billion in net outflows, suggesting the bitcoin bottom has structural support.
- Over $1.5 billion in futures liquidations have already cleared, reducing downside pressure on BTC’s price.
- Strategy‘s expected buyback after a recent 32 BTC sale could act as a key early signal for a market floor.
- Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick believes the bitcoin bottom is almost in, citing three specific market signals.
- Bitcoin ETF holdings have barely moved despite $5 billion in net outflows, suggesting the bitcoin bottom has structural support.
- Over $1.5 billion in futures liquidations have already cleared, reducing downside pressure on BTC’s price.
- Strategy’s expected buyback after a recent 32 BTC sale could act as a key early signal for a market floor.
Is the Bitcoin Bottom Closer Than the Market Thinks?
Crypto markets have had a rough few weeks, and sentiment has shifted about as dark as it gets. But while most traders are bracing for further pain, at least one prominent analyst thinks the bitcoin bottom is nearly in — and he’s got three concrete reasons to back that up. Geoff Kendrick, global head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered, laid out his case in a note that cuts through the doom and makes a disciplined, data-driven argument for why accumulating now might look smart in hindsight.
That’s a contrarian stance right now. Bitcoin has badly underperformed equities this year, leverage has been flushed out of the system, and retail confidence is low. But Kendrick isn’t making an emotional call — he’s pointing to specific, observable market mechanics that have historically preceded recoveries. Whether you agree with him or not, the framework is worth understanding.
Signal One: Strategy’s Playbook Is Repeating
The first pillar of Kendrick’s bitcoin bottom thesis involves Strategy — the Michael Saylor-linked firm formerly known as MicroStrategy and arguably the most watched corporate bitcoin holder on the planet. Last week, Strategy sold 32 BTC, its first sale in over three years. That spooked some observers, with prediction market Polymarket even sparking a dispute over whether the sale counted as occurring by May 31.
But Kendrick sees it differently. He points to December 2022, the last time Strategy sold BTC. Within just two days of that sale, the firm turned around and bought back significantly more than it had offloaded. Kendrick expects history to rhyme here, noting that if Strategy confirms a buyback next Monday, he’d treat it as a tentative signal that the bitcoin bottom is in. And not a small buyback — he suggested the firm could potentially purchase up to 100 times the amount it just sold. That would be a seismic show of conviction from one of crypto’s most influential institutional players.
It’s worth watching because Strategy doesn’t act randomly. The firm has a well-documented BTC acquisition strategy, and a rapid reversal after a modest sale would tell you something meaningful about their internal read on market conditions.
Signal Two: ETF Outflows Aren’t As Bad As They Look
The second signal is about perspective. The 11 spot bitcoin ETFs listed in the U.S. — products from issuers including BlackRock, Fidelity, and Ark Invest — have seen a net outflow of $5 billion over the past three weeks. On its face, that sounds bad. And in the moment, it felt bad.
But zoom out, and the picture changes. Since their launch in early 2024, these ETFs have accumulated a cumulative net inflow of $54.2 billion. That figure is right back to where it was earlier this year — which means the recent outflows, while real, have essentially erased only a few months of gains in the inflow tally, not the structural demand that built up over time. BTC holdings across these products went from roughly 682,000 coins at a recent high down to about 674,000 — a dip of less than two percent.
Kendrick put it plainly:
“They went up from 682k and then back down to now 674k (broadly unchanged). This tells me that ETF holdings are more structurally strong than I had feared in February.”That’s a meaningful statement. Earlier in the year, there were legitimate concerns that ETF investors — many of whom came in during the post-approval euphoria — would bail en masse at the first sign of sustained selling. They mostly haven’t. Long-term holders appear to be holding, which matters a lot for assessing where the real bitcoin bottom sits.
Signal Three: The Liquidation Cycle Is Mostly Over
The third and perhaps most technically compelling signal is the state of the futures market. Bitcoin futures positions worth $1.5 billion have been liquidated by exchanges over the recent downturn. That figure is comparable to January’s liquidation event — and crucially, after January’s flush, BTC bounced.
The logic here is straightforward. Liquidation cascades are self-reinforcing: leveraged longs get wiped out, forced selling pushes price lower, more longs get liquidated, repeat. But once that process runs its course, the market reaches a kind of equilibrium. There simply aren’t enough overleveraged positions left to trigger another cascade of similar scale. Kendrick argues we’re at — or very close to — that point now. With BTC already underperforming equities significantly this year, the pool of speculative long positions is smaller than it was at the start of the year, and the worst of the forced selling pressure may have already passed.
This aligns with data from CoinGlass, which tracks open interest and liquidations across major exchanges. Open interest levels following large liquidation events have historically been a useful gauge for identifying when selling pressure is exhausting itself.
What the 200-Week Moving Average Is Saying
Beyond Kendrick’s three signals, there’s a broader technical picture worth flagging. Bitcoin is currently trading near its 200-week simple moving average — a level that has acted as a floor during every previous bear market cycle. The pattern is well-established: BTC approaches this average, bears exhaust themselves, and a recovery follows. It happened in 2015, in 2018-2019, and again in 2022.
That doesn’t make it a guarantee. Past cycles don’t mechanically repeat, and there are always new macro variables — rate environments, regulatory shifts, institutional behavior — that can alter the playbook. But when a technical signal has held across multiple distinct market cycles, it at least earns a place in the analysis. The 200-week MA converging with Kendrick’s fundamental signals is either a coincidence or a meaningful confirmation. Most seasoned crypto investors won’t dismiss it.
The Bigger Picture: Accumulate or Wait?
Kendrick isn’t pretending there’s a clean, certain call here. He’s explicit about the conditional nature of his view — Strategy has to follow through on the buyback, ETF outflows have to stabilize, and the liquidation cycle has to confirm it’s done. Those are three real “ifs,
