Wall Street’s large bank Citigroup (Citi) suddenly significantly upgraded its outlook for cryptocurrencies.
Citigroup’s latest report raised its 12-month target price for Bitcoin (BTC) from $82,000 to $113,000, an increase of nearly 38%; its target price for Ethereum (ETH) was also raised from $2,240 to $3,028.
Citi’s reasons include: renewed momentum in crypto market activity, improving macro conditions, and the return of U.S. spot ETF inflows. Even more notably, Citi estimates that the crypto market over the next 12 months could attract approximately $5 billion in additional new capital.
This sharply contrasts with three months ago.
In July this year, Citigroup slashed its BTC target from $112,000 to $82,000 due to ETF fund outflows, weak investor demand, and disappointing progress on U.S. crypto regulatory legislation. Now it has been raised again to $113,000—meaning it not only recovers the amount reduced in July, but is even slightly higher than the earlier target.
BTC’s current price is about $83,700; Citigroup’s target implies roughly 35% upside.
As of the evening of October 1, Bitcoin was trading at around $83,700, and Ether at around $2,687.
Based on the current BTC price, if BTC ultimately reaches Citigroup’s 12-month target of $113,000, it would still imply about 35% upside. If ETH rises from about $2,687 to Citigroup’s $3,028 target, then there would be roughly 13% upside as well. This also shows that Citigroup’s current relative view on BTC is clearly more bullish than on ETH.
Three months ago it was cutting its target—so why the sudden flip to bullish now? Citigroup’s stance on BTC this year has actually undergone a very clear turning point.
In July this year, Bitcoin fell to roughly $58,864 at one point—close to being cut in half compared with the all-time high of $126,223 in October 2025. At that time, spot ETFs kept bleeding, so Citigroup significantly lowered both BTC ($112,000 → $82,000) and ETH ($3,175 → $2,240).
But market conditions have reversed rapidly over the past three months. Reuters, citing Citigroup data, said BTC has rebounded nearly 40% over the past three months, while ETH is up about 68%, narrowing the two coins’ declines since the start of this year to roughly 4% and 9%, respectively. BTC has rebounded about 40% from its July lows to date, and one major turning point is that U.S. spot ETFs have restarted absorbing capital.
Citigroup: The next wave won’t be violent inflows, but "slower and more stable".
It’s worth noting that Citigroup is not expecting another round of a frenzy of capital rushing in. Instead, the report believes future fund flows may be slower, but they should be more stable.
Citigroup believes that as financial advisers, brokers, and traditional investment channels gradually increase their allocation to bitcoin, capital flows in the crypto market are expected to keep recovering. This is also the core assumption behind Citigroup’s estimate that there will be roughly $5 billion in net fund inflows into the crypto market over the next 12 months.
This is different from the previous round of rallies that were driven mainly by retail investors, high leverage, and short-term market sentiment. If financial advisers begin adding BTC to clients’ portfolios, even if the size of a single fund may not be huge, ongoing asset-allocation demand could form a more stable buy-side.
ETF funds have already come back ahead of schedule.
Citigroup’s revised-up target price actually already shows that part of the capital-flow picture has improved.
SoSoValue’s latest data shows that U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs have recently returned to net inflows, with the latest single-day net inflow of approximately $66.19 million. Meanwhile, after the U.S. Treasury recently increased its long-term bond repurchase program, cumulative inflows into BTC spot ETFs over a period of time have already reached about $5.3 billion.
In other words, Citigroup is not betting on a trend that hasn’t appeared yet. Instead, it is betting that ETF funds—after earlier large outflows—have truly shifted back to net inflows. The only remaining question is whether that trend can continue.
The U.S. dollar weakening also became a catalyst for BTC’s rebound this round.
Citigroup pointed out that another important reason for Bitcoin’s rebound of about 40% from its July lows is the weakening of the U.S. dollar.
The U.S. Treasury has recently increased long-term Treasury buyback operations, putting pressure on the dollar and re-stimulating some fund flows into alternative assets such as crypto.
For BTC, a weaker dollar typically has two layers of effect.
First, since BTC is denominated in U.S. dollars, a falling dollar is usually favorable for the performance of dollar-denominated assets.
Second, if investors start to worry about long-term fiscal deficits, government debt, and purchasing power, the narrative for allocating to bitcoin as a scarce asset is also easier to heat up again.
This is also one of the key reasons Citigroup lists a "favorable macro environment" as important for raising its BTC target.
Another interesting point is that U.S. crypto legislation has not actually turned uniformly positive. The U.S. Senate failed to advance the crypto market structure bill (CLARITY Act) last week, meaning the road to building a comprehensive digital-asset regulatory framework has been blocked again.
Normally, this would be a negative for the crypto market. But Citigroup noted that after the CLARITY Act was blocked, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) instead released a series of regulatory rules and policy directions, which to a certain extent eased the negative sentiment the market originally had.
Citigroup’s current view is that while legislative progress in Congress is not as expected, administrative regulatory uncertainty is no longer as severe as it was in the first half of this year. For large financial institutions, if regulatory predictability improves, they may be more willing to include BTC in customer asset allocation.
$113,000 is not a "bull market guarantee".
Citigroup’s big increase in its target does not mean that all macro conditions are currently favorable for BTC. As of October 1, U.S. 10-year Treasury yields had risen to about 5.34%, the highest level since around 2002; 30-year yields are also kept at extremely high levels. This is one of BTC’s biggest headwinds right now. When U.S. government bonds can offer nominal yields above 5%, investors holding non–interest-bearing BTC need higher expected returns to compensate.
Moreover, the latest PCE is lower than expected, which led the market to reduce bets on the Fed raising rates again in October. However, the market still keeps open the possibility of another rate hike in December. Goldman Sachs has only pushed back its previously expected October hike to December, rather than directly shifting to rate cuts. Therefore, the current macro environment cannot simply be understood as a broad shift toward easing—while inflation pressure has improved somewhat, long-term interest rates are still very high.
What Citigroup truly did this time was a major reversal—re-believing in "institutional allocation".
In this move, Citigroup raised its BTC target from $82,000 all the way to $113,000. The most important change is not a prediction of a short-term explosive surge in BTC. Rather, Citigroup is once again believing that traditional finance is recovering its allocation to bitcoin.
In July, what Citigroup was worried about was: ETF outflows + a decline in investor interest + stalled regulatory legislation.
What October has brought is: ETF inflows returning + BTC rebounding 40% from the lows + the dollar weakening + financial advisers and brokers gradually increasing allocations.
So, this shift from $82,000 to $113,000 is, in essence, Citigroup re-pricing its assumptions about capital flows. Based on the current level of about $83,700, BTC still has roughly 35% upside versus Citigroup’s target. What will truly determine whether Citigroup is right is not the number $113,000 itself, but whether the report’s most important assumptions can be realized—namely, whether ETF and traditional-finance funds can indeed continue to flow in, rather than turning back to net outflows again.
"Citigroup suddenly dramatically turned bullish on Bitcoin! BTC’s target price was raised from $82,000 to $113,000, with an estimate that another $5 billion in funds will be coming in"—this article was first published on (Blocket).