Wall Street brokerage Bernstein and Coinbase analyst David Duong have both issued bullish outlooks for the cryptocurrency market, suggesting the recent downturn has likely bottomed and a structural expansion is beginning. Bernstein analysts state that Bitcoin and the broader crypto market have likely found a bottom, marking a clear shift from the $50,000-$60,000 downside fears prevalent in late 2025.
Coinbase's David Duong, in a conversation with Scott Melker, pointed to a key technical breakout. "We’ve broken out of that 80 to 85 range where we actually said that’s a good place for people to accumulate here," Duong said. He attributed the December selloff that shook market confidence to technical factors like tax-loss harvesting and options expiry, not fundamental weakness, noting that ETF outflows reversed almost immediately at the start of the new year. "On a dime on December 31st you saw a lot of that change," he noted, with spot Bitcoin ETF inflows rebounding since.
Bernstein's thesis centers on the start of a "tokenization supercycle" in 2026, which it believes will fundamentally reshape global financial infrastructure by moving real-world assets like equities, bonds, and real estate on-chain. The firm maintains its Bitcoin price target of $150,000 for 2026 and sees a cycle peak near $200,000 in 2027, framing this as a structural shift driven by institutional integration, not short-term speculation.
Institutional moves support this narrative. Morgan Stanley filed S-1 applications for both Bitcoin and Solana ETFs this week and added an Ethereum Trust to its internal product lineup. Duong explained this as a competitive response, stating, "You can’t have your biggest client like BlackRock coming in and saying we’re going into crypto and you don’t have a plan."
Analysts also observe early strength in altcoins, with Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), and XRP outperforming Bitcoin in early 2026. This capital rotation into riskier assets is seen as a healthy sign for the broader market, now that Bitcoin has greater regulatory clarity.
Despite the bullish outlook, risks remain. Duong expressed bullishness through Q1 and into early Q2 but said his visibility gets less clear beyond April-May, citing U.S. midterm elections and Supreme Court tariff rulings as potential market-moving events later in the year.
