The revision is more a recalibration than a fresh catalyst. Sell-side Bitcoin targets have trailed price this year, cut on the way down and lifted once the quarter beat the bank’s own assumptions. A forecast upgrade does not add demand by itself, so confirmation needs to come from price action and ETF flows rather than the headline. The distance between spot and the year-end projection implies a strong fourth quarter is needed to get there.
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Earlier:
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TD Cowen is nudging its Bitcoin forecast back up after a better quarter, but $109,000 is still a long way short of where the bank stood at the start of the year.
Summary:
- TD Cowen has raised its year-end 2026 Bitcoin projection to roughly $109,000 from $97,500, according to Crypto Briefing, and set a 2029 target of $280,000
- The bank had cut its outlook through 2026, from about $177,000 in February to about $100,000 in June and $97,500 in September
- Analyst Lance Vitanza said this week Bitcoin finished Q3 several thousand dollars above the firm’s $76,235 assumption, prompting a review of longer-term targets
- Vitanza cited an end-2027 figure of $132,750 and expected annual gains of high-20% to 30%, a pace that does not fully reconcile with the $280,000 for 2029
- The Strategy price target was reportedly kept at $260, with share issuance expected to offset part of the boost from a higher Bitcoin price
TD Cowen has raised its year-end 2026 Bitcoin projection to roughly $109,000, according to a report from Crypto Briefing, partly reversing a cut the firm made just five weeks earlier. The report said the revision was made on October 8 and that the bank also set a long-range target of $280,000 for 2029. The full research note was not available at the time of writing.
The change follows a run of downgrades from the bank’s digital-asset research team, led by analyst Lance Vitanza. In February the firm was forecasting Bitcoin at around $177,000 by the end of 2026. At the end of June it trimmed that base case to about $100,000 from roughly $140,000, and lowered its end-2027 target to $135,000 from $190,000. On September 2, with Bitcoin trading near $78,000, it set a year-end target of $97,500, attributing the cut to recent price weakness rather than any change in its broader view.
The trigger for the latest revision appears to be the third quarter. In a Bitcoin Magazine interview published on Monday, Vitanza said the firm’s price deck had assumed Bitcoin would end the quarter at $76,235, but it finished several thousand dollars higher. He said TD Cowen needed to reassess its longer-term targets as a result, while making clear the interview itself was not a forecast change. He also pointed to an end-2027 figure of $132,750 and said the firm still expects Bitcoin to appreciate at a high-20% to 30% annual rate.
That growth rate does not sit neatly with the 2029 figure. Compounding $109,000 at 30% a year for three years gives roughly $240,000, so reaching $280,000 would require faster gains, a different starting point or assumptions not yet set out in the reporting.
The bank reportedly kept its $260 price target on Strategy unchanged, expecting dilution from share issuance to offset part of the lift from a higher Bitcoin price. Vitanza has argued that well-managed Bitcoin treasury companies could outperform the coin itself by around 50%.
The headline figure is best read as a partial recovery from earlier cuts rather than a fresh bullish call. Even at $109,000, the 2026 projection remains well below the $140,000 to $177,000 the firm was forecasting earlier this year. The next things to watch are the note itself, which should confirm whether $109,000 is a formal target or a base case and how the 2029 number was built, Bitcoin’s fourth-quarter performance against the new projection, and whether the bank revisits its Strategy target when the year closes.
This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at investinglive.com.