Key Notes
- The bank maintains Bitcoin as its top digital asset pick, citing its digital gold narrative and dominant market position.
- Institutional allocations and advisor-led inflows are expected to sustain upward momentum throughout the remaining months.
- Equity market weakness poses downside risk for Bitcoin, while Ethereum faces modeling complexity from Layer-2 activity.
Citigroup has issued an updated forecast for the crypto market, raising its price target for Ethereum ETH $4 435 24h volatility: 2.3% Market cap: $536.67 B Vol. 24h: $42.94 B while making a slight downward adjustment to its year-end view for Bitcoin BTC $119 853 24h volatility: 1.6% Market cap: $2.39 T Vol. 24h: $67.72 B . The bank cited stronger-than-expected investor flows and growing institutional adoption as key drivers for the market.
In a new note to clients, Citi projects that Bitcoin will end the year at $132,000. This marks a modest revision from a research note in July 2025, which had placed the year-end target at $135,000. According to Reuters , the bank’s 12-month target for Bitcoin remains ambitious at $181,000. For Ether, the forecast has been raised to $4,500 by the end of 2025, with a 12-month target of $5,440.
Bitcoin Remains the Preferred ‘Digital Gold’
Despite the slight trim to its forecast, Citi analysts expressed a stronger conviction for Bitcoin compared to Ether, labeling it the bank’s preferred digital asset. The note explained that Bitcoin tends to capture an outsized portion of incremental flows into crypto markets.
The bank highlighted Bitcoin’s size, longer history, and its clearer ‘digital-gold’ narrative as factors that make it more attractive to incoming investors. This perspective is further supported by Bitcoin’s strengthening correlation with actual gold, underscoring its growing role as a store of value in traditional investment portfolios despite signs of weakening buy-side activity .
Citi expects the positive momentum from investment flows to continue. The bank sees this trend being supported by institutional investors and financial advisors who are beginning to allocate capital to the asset class, helped by a positive regulatory environment, especially in the US.
While Citi’s base case points to significant gains, it also outlined potential risks. A bear case for Bitcoin is tied to weakness in the equity markets . The outlook for Ether is considered more complex. Analysts noted that its forecasts are more uncertain due to the complexities of modeling user activity and value accrual from Layer-2 networks. However, they acknowledged that strong investor flows could still lead to meaningful price appreciation for the second-largest crypto asset.
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