Institutional adoption and new rate cuts will catapult Bitcoin to surge by 15% and hit $102,000 in 2026, according to Gabe Selby, head of research at CF Benchmarks.
Falling labour costs hint that inflation is cooling, which will incentivise the Federal Reserve to make another rate cut.
“A ‘goldilocks’ environment is emerging that gives the Fed room to deliver additional rate cuts in 2026,” Selby told DL News. “Overall economic activity remains resilient.”
Lower interest rates have historically been good for riskier assets because they disincentivise investors to hold bonds.
The bullish predictions come after the Fed slashed interest rates to their lowest point in three years in December.
Fed governor Stephen Miran said on Bloomberg Television that he is pencilling in another 1.5% of interest rate cuts for this year, arguing that the looser stance is needed to support the US economy.
While assets like stocks and gold are hitting new all-time highs, Bitcoin and other cryptos have lagged. Bitcoin is still down nearly 30% from its all-time high of $126,000 set in October.
On Thursday, investors sold another $400 million in exchange-traded funds backed by Bitcoin, data compiled by DefiLlama shows.
The overall crypto market is still down over $1 trillion from its October highs.
Institutions pile on
Selby said that institutions will drive markets in 2026.
More than $100 billion is already parked across some 14 US exchange-traded funds, according to DefiLlama. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust leads the pack with $67 billion in assets under management.
“While the initial phase centered on access via ETFs such as [BlackRock’s] IBIT, the next phase is likely to focus on deeper adoption, as institutions move beyond tactical exposure and begin integrating digital assets into discretionary strategies and model mandates,” he said.
And Selby is not the only one anticipating an institutional buying spree.
“We can expect a growing emphasis on value capture from real usage, such as buybacks and fee sharing, alongside technical innovation,” Hassan Ahmed, Coinbase’s Singapore lead, told DL News earlier this week.
Morgan Stanley is also preparing to launch new ETFs backed by Bitcoin and other cryptos, a Securities & Exchange Commission filing showed this week.
Crypto market movers
Bitcoin is up 0.5% over the past 24 hours, trading at $90,210.
Ethereum is down 0.5% past 24 hours at $3,086.
