Standard Chartered analyst says ‘buy the dip’ amid bitcoin-Nasdaq ‘correlation pain’
2025-01-27
Category: None

Standard Chartered's Geoffrey Kendrick has recommended buying the dip in bitcoin as the cryptocurrency faces pressure from its growing correlation with the Nasdaq.
"BTC remains strongly correlated to Nasdaq, much more so than it does to gold," said Kendrick, head of forex and digital assets research at Standard Chartered, in a statement to The Block on Monday. Kendrick said a 3% drop in Nasdaq futures, driven by DeepSeek-related news, triggered significant overnight crypto liquidations, reinforcing the link between crypto and tech sectors.
Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 3.3% today ahead of the opening bell, with several tech stocks following suit. Nvidia plunged over 13% in pre-market trading after DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup barely a year old, unveiled its flagship AI model, R1. The model reportedly rivals OpenAI's capabilities while being significantly more cost-effective.
"The risk now is that if Nasdaq liquidation continues during the U.S. session (and ahead of this week's earnings releases — Wednesday sees Microsoft, Meta, and Tesla — and likely disappointing FOMC [Federal Open Market Committee] Wednesday), then we start to approach other key levels for BTC," Kendrick said. "Specifically, the average purchase level for BTC ETFs since the U.S. election now stands at $96,400."
On Trump's crypto executive order
Kendrick also addressed last week's crypto executive order announcement from the Donald Trump administration, which tasks a working group with evaluating a national digital asset stockpile. He noted the announcement added uncertainty to the market.
"The disappointment for me was two-fold," Kendrick said. "1. 'Stockpile' rather than 'Reserve' sounds more like seized assets rather than purchased assets. 2. The executive order is now done and any further clarity/action will have to go through Congress which will take some time."
However, with the Trump administration news now public, Kendrick said the "disappointment/confusion and therefore 'hope phase' is over," reducing bitcoin market risks. The next phase, he said, is to "Buy the dip."
Last week, Kendrick outlined three phases: "when hope dies"; "buy the dip"; and "alt-coin alpha." In the second phase, he predicted institutional money would dominate and reiterated Standard Chartered's price targets of $200,000 for BTC and $10,000 for ETH by the end of the year.
After the second phase begins, Kendrick foresees the start of an alt-coin "light" season. I say light because institutional flows will drive BTC and ETH, partly offsetting rotation into alts. I will look for new ETF winners (Litecoin?) and specific regulatory change winners (Uniswap?)," Kendrick said at the time.
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