bernstein

Despite the recent downturn in the crypto market, research firm Bernstein has maintained its forecast of reaching $BTC $150,000 by the end of the year.
📊 Bernstein's outlook:
🔹 The current dip is due to weak investor sentiment, not a collapse in market fundamentals.
🔹 Institutional demand factors are still in play.
🔹 The long-term structure of Bitcoin hasn't fundamentally changed.

Three stories from this week that don't make the same headlines as the $80K break — but matter more for where crypto is in 12–24 months.Bernstein maintains $150K for 2026, $200K for 2027.Bernstein maintained its forecast that the token will hit $150,000 in 2026 and $200,000 in 2027. Looking ahead, a tokenization "supercycle" led by highfliers Robinhood, Coinbase, Figure, and Circle will continue to drive institutional adoption and lift the crypto sector.
The $150K target requires BTC to roughly double from current $79K–$80K. The timeline is the full year 2026 — not immediately. For that to happen, Bernstein's analysts need several things to materialize: CLARITY Act passage (scheduled May 11 markup), continued ETF inflow acceleration, at least one Federal Reserve rate cut before year-end, and some degree of Hormuz/Iran resolution that brings oil below $90. CoinDeskThe "tokenization supercycle" framing is the more interesting analytical thesis. Bernstein is not just saying BTC goes up. They're saying the companies building the infrastructure to tokenize real-world assets — Robinhood's prediction and event markets, Coinbase's institutional custody, Circle's USDC ecosystem, Figure's lending platform — are collectively building the plumbing of a new financial system. And those companies are the ones that compound fastest as the cycle matures.The strategist sees a scenario where bitcoin could test the $105K–$106K level before its base case calls for a significant rally into the end of 2026.
Bitcoin v31.0rc4 just dropped — three changes worth knowing. CoinDeskThe release candidate for Bitcoin Core v31.0 is now in final testing. Three changes matter for users and node operators:First, "cluster mempool" — a redesigned transaction selection system that improves fee estimation and reduces the inefficiencies that currently allow fee manipulation. More efficient fee markets mean better UX for everyone transacting on Bitcoin.The v31.0rc4 release candidate includes a redesigned "cluster mempool" for better transaction selection and fee efficiency, increases the default database cache to 1,024 MB for faster synchronization, and mandates transaction broadcasting through privacy networks like Tor or I2P to hide users' IP addresses. The mandatory privacy routing could initially reduce network connectivity for some nodes.
The Tor/I2P mandatory routing is the most consequential change for ordinary users. Currently, when you broadcast a Bitcoin transaction from your node, your IP address is visible to network participants — meaning your activity can potentially be correlated with your physical location. v31 forces all transaction broadcasting through privacy networks, eliminating that IP leak at the protocol level. LaikalabsThis is a meaningful step toward Bitcoin functioning as actual financial privacy infrastructure rather than a pseudonymous but IP-leaky system. It also aligns with the post-Iran environment: in a world where Bitcoin is used to route payments around sanctions, governments will increasingly try to identify node operators. v31 makes that harder.The CLARITY Act, Bernstein's supercycle, and Bitcoin's protocol improvements are all building toward the same destination. The question is just timing.
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