As leverage and relative volatility normalise versus gold, the leading cryptocurrency could climb to $170,000 within the next 6–12 months, JPMorgan analysts said, according to The Block.
By their count, the crypto market has corrected by nearly 20% from recent highs. The steepest drop came overnight 10–11 October amid record liquidations in perpetual contracts. Smaller position closures followed on 3 November.
They noted that the November liquidations coincided with a fresh blow to investor confidence — the hack of the Balancer DeFi protocol for $128m. The incident again highlighted the security risks of decentralised projects.
Despite the bouts of selling, the deleveraging phase is “largely done”, the analysts stressed. Open interest in bitcoin perpetual futures relative to the asset’s market capitalisation has fallen from above-average levels back to its historical norm.
A similar picture is visible in Ethereum, though the reduction in leverage there was less pronounced.
