Citi slashes Bitcoin target by $31,000 despite rising prices as Washington delays stall crypto breakout

Citigroup cuts Bitcoin and Ethereum targets as slower US policy timeline trims the upside case

Citigroup has cut its 12-month targets for Bitcoin and Ethereum, lowering its Bitcoin forecast to $112,000 from $143,000 and its Ethereum forecast to $3,175 from $4,304.

The March 17 revision marks a sharp step down from the bank’s December view and ties that reset to slower US legislative progress, a delay that Citi said is weighing on the policy support it had expected to help drive ETF demand and wider adoption.

The cuts are large enough to change the shape of the one-year crypto outlook without turning Citi bearish on the two assets.

Bitcoin’s new target is about 21.7% below Citi’s prior forecast, while Ethereum’s new target is about 26.2% below the earlier call. Both new targets still sit above current market prices.

Based on the latest CryptoSlate figures, Citi’s revised Bitcoin target still implies roughly 51.8% upside from spot, while its revised ether target implies about 36.8% upside.

Citi still expects Bitcoin and Ethereum to rise over the next year. But it has sharply lowered the ceiling it sees for both assets because the bank no longer expects the same pace of regulatory progress, institutional demand, and network follow-through that shaped its December forecasts.

For a market that has already bounced in recent weeks, the downgrade reads less like a call for immediate downside and more like a warning that the path higher may be slower and narrower than the earlier bull case assumed.

That warning lands as both assets have posted recent gains. Bitcoin trades around $74,000, up 4.5% over seven days, and 7.5% over 30 days. Ethereum sits near $2,300, up 12% over seven days, and 15% over 30 days.

The downgrade arrives as the market has recovered tactically, even as one of Wall Street’s largest banks has lowered its one-year expectations.

Citi’s new targets still point higher, but the one-year range has narrowed

Citi’s revision follows a much more upbeat set of targets published in December. At that point, the bank set a 12-month Bitcoin target of $143,000 and a 12-month ether target of $4,304, while also outlining a Bitcoin bull case of $189,000 and an Ethereum bull case of $5,132 in a December report.

The earlier view leaned on regulatory easing and increased adoption. The new view keeps the basic upside case alive, but resets it lower because that policy timeline has not moved as fast as Citi expected.

In practical terms, the bank is saying the market may still move up over the next year, but the fuel it expected to push prices much higher has not arrived on schedule. That is a narrower and more cautious claim than the one Citi made at the end of last year. It also shifts the focus away from pure price prediction and toward the mechanism behind the forecast.

Citi’s December case depended on regulation, ETF demand, and adoption, reinforcing one another. Its March revision suggests that the sequence now looks less certain and less immediate.

The numbers show that clearly.

The table captures the contradiction at the center of Citi’s revision. Prices have improved over the last week and month, especially for Ethereum, but Citi has still lowered its one-year targets. That suggests the bank is questioning whether the forces needed to sustain a larger move are strong enough to restore the December outlook.

That is especially relevant for Ethereum. Ethereum has outperformed Bitcoin over both the seven-day and 30-day windows in the latest market snapshot. Even so, Citi cut Ethereum's target by a larger percentage than Bitcoin’s, pointing to a more cautious view of the medium-term case for ETH than short-term price action alone would suggest. In other words, recent strength has not been enough to offset Citi’s concerns around adoption, policy timing, and the broader demand backdrop.

For Bitcoin, the change is slightly different. Citi still sees more than 50% upside from current levels, which means the bank has not rejected the broader institutional case for BTC. But by cutting the target from $143,000 to $112,000, it has marked down how far that case can travel in the next year under current conditions.

That leaves Bitcoin with a still-positive but less expansive upside profile, one that depends more heavily on steady inflows and less on a rapid policy tailwind.

ETF flows and market performance show support is still there, but Citi is looking past the rebound

According to Farside, spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $199 million in net inflows on March 16, bringing cumulative net inflows to $56.3 billion. Spot Ethereum ETFs posted $36 million in net inflows, with cumulative net inflows of $11.8 billion.

Those numbers show real demand is still present. But they also help explain why Citi’s revision is more nuanced than a simple bearish call. The issue is whether the current pace of flows, combined with a slower policy timeline, is strong enough to support the much higher targets Citi set in December. On that question, the bank’s answer now appears to be no.

That shift is easier to see when the December and March narratives are placed side by side. In December, Citi tied its targets to regulatory easing and wider adoption.

In March, it cut those same targets because US legislative progress had been slower than expected, according to the March 17 report. The underlying change is not that crypto prices have stopped moving. Citi is saying the policy and demand sequence it expected to amplify those moves has not come together fast enough.

That leaves markets in an unusual position. Bitcoin and Ethereum have both recovered in recent weeks. ETF money is still coming in. Yet a major bank has decided that the one-year payoff should be reduced anyway.

That gap between price performance and target revisions is the more useful signal. It says the market can rally in the short run without persuading every large forecaster that the longer-term setup has improved by the same degree.

It also explains why Citi’s downgrade does not read like a call on day-to-day trading. The bank is cutting a 12-month target, not predicting a near-term crash. That distinction matters. Targets are about the scale of the move over time, not whether prices can keep rising over the next few sessions or even the next few weeks.

By that standard, Citi’s message is straightforward: the market can still go up, but the room above spot is smaller than the bank thought a few months ago.

The next test is whether policy and flows can rebuild the case Citi cut back

The main variable behind Citi’s reset is Washington. In January, Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott announced a digital-asset market structure markup for Jan. 15, then postponed it on Jan. 14 as negotiations continued, according to the committee’s statement and follow-up update. Senators are still working to unlock the stalled CLARITY Act through a compromise tied to stablecoin yield.

That timeline shapes Citi’s reset because it is the clearest reason the bank has given for lowering its targets. A slower policy track delays legislation and weakens confidence that a friendlier rule set will arrive soon enough to accelerate ETF demand, corporate participation, and other forms of institutional adoption within the next year.

The mechanism is concrete: if the policy step slips, the adoption step can slip with it, making price targets tied to that adoption harder to defend.

For Bitcoin, the next question is whether spot ETF inflows can keep building even without a cleaner legislative backdrop. If they can, Citi’s new target could still prove conservative. If inflows flatten or lose momentum, the bank’s cut may look early rather than late.

The same structure applies to Ethereum, but with a tighter margin for error. Ethereum's recent gains have been stronger, yet Citi’s target cut was deeper. That means ETH needs not only continued price support, but stronger evidence that usage and institutional demand can justify a higher one-year ceiling.

None of that requires a dramatic break in either direction. The data already in hand points to a narrower, more conditional setup. Citi still sees upside from current prices. ETF flows remain positive. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum have risen over the last month. But the one-year case now depends more heavily on whether policy negotiations start producing results and whether flows remain strong enough to replace the optimism Citi stripped from its December forecasts.

The next few months should show whether that caution was warranted. A legislative breakthrough, stronger ETF inflow streaks, or firmer adoption data could rebuild the case for higher targets.

More delays in Washington, softer flows, or weaker follow-through from recent market gains would support Citi’s decision to lower the bar.

For now, Citi’s revision leaves crypto with a live but reduced upside case, and with a clear test ahead, whether policy and demand can catch up to the prices that have already moved.

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