Citigroup has significantly lowered its 12-month price targets for bitcoin and ether, citing fading U.S. regulatory momentum, weaker network activity, and reduced expectations for ETF inflows.
The bank now forecasts bitcoin at $112,000-down from $143,000-and ether at $3,175, a sharp drop from its prior $4,304 projection. At the time of the report, bitcoin traded near $74,000 and ether around $2,330.
Analyst Alex Saunders emphasized ETF demand as the key upside driver but revised estimated inflows downward to $10 billion for bitcoin and $2.5 billion for ether.
Citi attributes the bearish shift to stalled progress on the CLARITY Act-a major U.S. crypto market-structure bill that passed the House but remains stuck in the Senate. The legislation aims to resolve jurisdictional conflicts between the SEC and CFTC by defining digital asset classifications and exchange rules.
Without clear federal regulation, institutional capital deployment remains constrained. Bitcoin has struggled below key technical levels since its October 2025 peak, while ether lags further due to soft onchain metrics.
In Citi’s framework, the bull case-$165,000 for BTC and $4,488 for ETH-hinges on strong ETF adoption. The bear case-$58,000 and $1,198-assumes recessionary macro conditions.