21Shares Bitcon Price Forcast and Mid-Year Market Review

Asset manager 21Shares maintained its base-case forecast for bitcoin to recover toward $100,000 by the end of 2026, citing on-chain data that shows the cryptocurrency remains above its aggregate investor cost basis despite a sharp correction from last year's peak.

The Zurich-based firm published its State of Crypto 2026: Mid-Year Update on June 24, revisiting ten forecasts it made at the start of the year and assessing developments across exchange-traded products, decentralized finance, prediction markets, digital asset treasuries and tokenization.

Bitcoin reached $126,000 in October 2025 before retreating roughly 50%, according to the report. The decline remains significantly shallower than the 80%-plus drawdowns seen in previous market cycles.

Bitcon Price and Mid-Year Market Review by 21Shares

"Price action still looks familiar," Eliezer Ndinga, global head of research at 21Shares, said in the report, adding that bitcoin has remained above its aggregate investor cost basis of about $54,000 throughout the current downturn.

The firm said its year-end outlook calls for a recovery toward $100,000 rather than a return to record highs.

Institutional allocations through exchange-traded products have also remained close to peak levels despite weaker prices.

Global Market Review ETPs, DeFi, and DATs 

Global crypto ETP assets under management stood at approximately $140 billion as of May, down 15% from the start of the year. Bitcoin ETPs accounted for about $110 billion of that total, according to 21Shares.

Underlying holdings reached just over 1.25 million BTC, roughly 8% below all-time highs, even after about $3 billion in net outflows from U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs.

The report also highlighted new product launches beyond bitcoin and ether. U.S.-listed Hyperliquid ETFs accumulated more than $150 million in net inflows during their first month of trading, according to 21Shares.

Elsewhere, decentralized prediction markets recorded $57.5 billion in volume through the end of May, surpassing half of the firm's original full-year projection of $100 billion.

21Shares said activity in the second half of the year could receive support from the FIFA World Cup and U.S. midterm congressional elections, with annual volumes tracking toward $200 billion under stronger event participation.

In DeFi, total value locked remained near $140 billion, well below the firm's $300 billion target. The report attributed part of the shortfall to security incidents, noting that more than $840 million had been lost through exploits across more than 50 events in 2026.

The report also pointed to continued consolidation among Ethereum scaling networks. Base, Arbitrum and Optimism accounted for about 83% of Layer-2 DeFi total value locked, reflecting what 21Shares described as a concentration of liquidity and users among a small number of platforms.

Digital asset treasury companies collectively held nearly 1.28 million BTC, according to the report, with about 200 listed firms adopting bitcoin treasury strategies. Those holdings were valued at roughly $100 billion at current prices, short of 21Shares' earlier projection that the sector would exceed $250 billion in assets this year.

The firm's data showed that 13 of 18 major digital asset treasury companies traded below the value of their underlying crypto holdings as of June 8.

On tokenization, publicly distributed real-world assets reached approximately $31 billion, including about $15 billion in tokenized U.S. Treasuries.

When assets represented on permissioned institutional networks such as Canton are included, the total rises to roughly $350 billion, according to 21Shares.

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