Bitcoin Forecast: BTC/USD Levels, Scenarios and Targets

Whether bitcoin rises again is decided first at the lower trend channel boundary. Bitcoin is just below the $80,000 mark, the green line is under pressure, and a reaction of the market is still to come. As long as the support holds, the outlook stays positive. Then the 50-day moving average at $81,916 could act as resistance, above it the May high at $82,814. A daily close above $87,397 would be a new long-term buy signal; the rally would only be over below the previous week's low at $79,107.

The daily chart shows the rise since the low in mid-August. From the low at $62,468 on 14 August, bitcoin climbed above $80,000 by the end of August. On 21 September it broke above the May high at $82,814, with the September high at $87,397.

The correction phase runs along the green trend channel line. A trend channel consists of two parallel trend lines. Here both lines rise, the red one above and the green one below. Bitcoin sits on the green line, which stays under pressure; below it runs Karsten's blue line from the low of the year in July.

Since 7 October the May high has been contested, and now it sits above the price. At the end of September it still held as support. The daily close on 10 October was back just above it at $82,911. After that the breakout above the 20-day average failed, and the price fell to $79,676, briefly below the $80,000 mark. At the start of the week the 20-day average and the May high formed the lid: bitcoin rose to $83,076 on Monday and fell back. On Tuesday the price fell to $81,081 onto the green trend line and rose to $83,344. On Wednesday the breakout above the May high succeeded but came straight back: the week reached $84,856 and then fell to $79,107, with new lows but relatively stable. Monday brought the week's low so far at $79,255, and the week rose to $81,715; Wednesday brought the Fed's rate pause. Today's daily bar opened at $81,249, rose to $81,290 and fell to $79,586. In the morning bitcoin trades at $79,824, below the $80,000 mark, the 20-day average at $81,695 and the 50-day average at $81,916.

The green line stays relevant for the further development. The price shows little impression from the Fed decision and trades again below the $80,000 mark, at the green trend line, which is under pressure. The wicks of the daily candles point to demand setting in, from which a recovery could form. Only a clear break below $80,000 with closes firmly at the daily lows would point to increasing selling pressure; the target would then be the 2025 low at $74,421. On a retest the 50-day average could offer resistance, with the May high and the 20-day average above. A decisive reaction of the market is still to come; as long as the support holds, the outlook stays positive.

These levels limit the price above and below. The resistances are the high of the year, the September high, the May high, the 50-day average, the 20-day average and the $80,000 mark; the supports are the previous week's low and the 2025 low at $74,421.

The September high above and the previous week's low below decide. The price levels come from Karsten's charts; the closing conditions are an editorial guideline. They are reference levels, not order rules.

For the cards, the daily close in the Coinbase daily chart shown above counts. The daily candle closes at 00:00 UTC, which has been 1:00 am German winter time since 25 October. Such a signal does not guarantee a continuation or that the target is reached; intraday spikes without a close do not count.

The weekly chart above shows a base forming in 2026. Karsten reads it as a rounding bottom, a rounded base pattern: after the 2025 high at $126,296, bitcoin fell to the low of the year at $57,718 in July, and since then the weekly bars have turned up.

In August bitcoin broke the long-term downtrend line. The long-term downtrend line ran down from the 2025 high; in the week from 17 August the price rose above it in one move. Since then the weekly chart has shown an established uptrend.

The weekly chart has been rather sideways since the end of September. From the September high at $87,397 quotes tend toward the $80,000 mark. Last week marked a new interim low at $79,107; in this week the green supporting line of the trend channel, which consists of two parallel trend lines, is still under pressure; a reaction of the market is still to come. A clear break of the support with new lows should tend toward the 2025 low at $74,421. The price is still about 37 percent below the 2025 high.

In euros, bitcoin traded at about €71,700 on Sunday morning. The May high equals about €73,900 and the September high about €78,000; the high of the year would be about €87,400. The conversion uses bitcoin in euros from the same Coinbase series (BTC-EUR) at the same minute, which puts the exchange rate at about 1.12 dollars per euro.

These events are coming up in the next few weeks. Bitcoin now reacts strongly to US interest rates and to flows into bitcoin ETFs. The dates are occasions to read the chart again, not a forecast of a particular reaction.

Wednesday, 28 October: the Fed rate decision after the meeting of 27 and 28 October; rates were left unchanged (FOMC statement).

Friday, 6 November, 8:30 am New York time (14:30 CET): the US jobs report for October (BLS calendar for November).

This part is written for readers who look beyond the next few weeks. It rests on the quarterly chart, where each bar shows three months.

After the strong third quarter, the quarterly chart shows a subdued start to the fourth. It uses a logarithmic scale, so equal percentage moves look equally large. The correction from the 2025 high at $126,296 ran in the third quarter of 2026 down to the low of the year at $57,718; the quarter still closed at $83,556. In the fourth quarter the price has come back from the quarter's high at $87,249, moves around the $80,000 mark and has the 2025 low in view. The tendency is rather sideways; after the strong third quarter, follow-through would still be expected.

A new long-term buy signal would come above the September high. If the level at $87,397 is overcome, bitcoin could well head for the 2025 high again in the longer run, in Karsten's assessment.

Below the market Karsten has marked several supports. The most important are the 2025 low at $74,421 and the 2021 high at $69,000. An old high can act as support after a breakout when the price later returns to it.

Bank price targets answer a different question from the chart. Most of them apply to the end of 2026, Citigroup's to the next twelve months and Fidelity's as a next target, and they rest on valuation models, not on levels in the price chart.

For the end of 2026 the range is wide. Fundstrat (Tom Lee) expects $200,000 to $250,000, JPMorgan $150,000 to $170,000, Bernstein $125,000, TD Cowen about $109,000 and Standard Chartered $100,000. Citigroup's 12-month target is $113,000. NYDIG names $38,000 to $39,000, but as a bear scenario, not as its base case.

Until the end of September the revisions of these firms went down. Citigroup and Bernstein cut twice each in 2026, Standard Chartered once, after a first cut in December 2025. Then the direction turned: Fidelity strategist Jurrien Timmer named $100,000 as the next target at the end of September, and on 1 October Citigroup raised its target from $82,000 to $113,000, citing returning ETF inflows. According to reports of 8 October, TD Cowen reversed a September cut and lifted its year-end target from $97,500 to about $109,000; the full research note is not public. The graphic below shows the revisions by firm.

Sources for the latest changes: the Citigroup increase as reported by Reuters, the Bernstein cut on Cointelegraph, Jurrien Timmer's new view on 24/7 Wall St. and the TD Cowen increase on investingLive.

For 2030 and beyond, the estimates vary widely. ARK Invest names $1.2 million for 2030 in its bull case (Cathie Wood, November 2025) and about $710,000 in its base case, Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong $300,000 to $400,000, VanEck $2.9 million for 2050. These targets come mostly from market participants with their own position in bitcoin and assume that bitcoin takes over a large part of the world's store of value.