Bitcoin (BTC) is poised to hit a new record high, with investment flows now the dominant market driver, according to Standard Chartered (STAN).

U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have seen $5.3 billion in inflows over the past three weeks, the investment bank said in emailed comments Thursday.

Adjusting for hedge fund basis trades, net real flow is estimated at over $4 billion, the bank said. The basis trade is a strategy that exploits the difference between the spot price of bitcoin and the price of the cryptocurrency in the futures market.

Strategy (MSTR) has increased its holdings to 555,450 BTC, or 2.6% of total future supply, which is locked at 21 million BTC. The company’s plan to raise $84 billion to buy more of the world’s largest cryptocurrency could bring its stash to over 6%, wrote Geoff Kendrick, head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered.

Next week’s 13F filings may reveal further institutional adoption, Standard Chartered said. Abu Dhabi’s sovereign fund already holds BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF (IBIT), and both the Swiss National Bank and Norges Bank have disclosed positions in MSTR.

New Hampshire passed a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve bill this week, the first U.S. state to do so, which signals growing policy alignment, the report added.

Given these developments, a second-quarter bitcoin target of $120,000 may be too conservative, the bank said, citing its previous forecast.

The bank has a year-end bitcoin price target of $200,000.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency was trading around $101,000 at publication time.

Read more: Bitcoin to Hit New All-Time High Around $120K in Q2, Standard Chartered Says

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Bitcoin is back in six figures, continuing yet another of its famous zigs when most were expecting a zag.

To review, the world’s largest crypto first pushed through $100,000 in December as it rallied hard following Donald Trump’s November election victory. The price eventually rose above $109,000 in the hours prior to the Trump inauguration on Jan. 20.

With the bulls furiously revising their upside price targets higher, things began to crack at that moment. What followed in ensuing weeks was a steady decline, which reached its denouement at just under $75,000 in the panic following Trump’s early April announcements of punitive tariffs against U.S. trading partners.

The carnage in many altcions was far worse. Solana (SOL) and ether (ETH), for instance, had peak to bottom declines of more than 60%.

Prices have quickly reversed since, though, with traditional markets joining crypto in looking past the tariff shock. As with bitcoin, the Nasdaq and S&P 500 are both currently at higher levels than prior to Trump’s Liberation Day.

This latest push to above $100,000 appears to be due to a trade deal between the U.S. and UK.

It’s all about the flows

«The dominant story for bitcoin has changed again,» wrote Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick in a note Thursday morning. «It is now all about flows. And flows are coming in many forms.»

Kendrick took note of the well-reported story about surging inflows into the spot bitcoin ETFs of late. These are sometimes dismissed thanks to a sizable chunk of those flows being offset by basis trades (where hedge funds put on an equal short of bitcoin futures and bank a small yield). Kendrick, however, argued that basis trades have barely moved higher during this latest bout of inflows, suggesting real money is moving into the ETFs.

The 13F institutional reporting of not just spot BTC ETF holdings, but also ownership of major corporate bitcoin holder Strategy (MSTR) will begin rolling in one week from now, and Kendrick expects further confirmation of important players boosting their allocations.

«I apologize that my $120,000 second quarter target may be too low,» concluded Kendrick.

The Senate’s Republican majority leader, John Thune, took to the chamber floor on Thursday morning to make a case for moving forward with stablecoin legislation — marking his first significant foray into the topic of crypto as Republicans grow frustrated with keeping what was once a bipartisan effort on track.

«Stablecoins should be made in the USA, but we can’t lead in innovation if there’s no clarity for the innovators,» Thune said in his speech on the Senate Floor, delivered in the runup to an afternoon vote meant to advance the debate on the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act that would establish a U.S. regime to regulate stablecoin issuers.

«Americans are already using stablecoins and will continue to use them with or without legislation,» Thune argued, saying that the bill will establish safeguards against money laundering and threats to national security, in addition to protecting consumers with reserve requirements.

«The GENIUS Act is by no means the last word on digital assets,» the South Dakota lawmaker said, but he characterized it as a «first step toward bringing digital assets into our financial system.»

Though many Democrats expressed earlier support for the legislation and helped move it out of the Senate Banking Committee with an 18-6 vote, they’ve have thrown up loud objections to moving forward, focusing on President Donald Trump’s personal crypto interests and the potential conflicts posed by those business ties. Senator Ruben Gallego has been in the vanguard of this backlash, despite his close ties to the industry, which supported his 2024 Senate campaign with $10 million in advertising paid for by an affiliate of the crypto-backed Fairshake political action committee.

The Senate is steaming toward a 1:45 p.m. Thursday so-called cloture vote, which would open debate in the legislation — a back-and-forth which itself could occupy days of floor time. But that next step would need several Democrats to pass the 60-vote required margin. Alongside Gallego, several of the Democrats who voted for the bill in committee have said they would oppose the cloture vote.

Thune made the case that Democrats should allow the bill to move to that stage so that the changes they want can be hashed out in the open.

Lawmakers and staffers in the Senate worked overnight into the early hours of Thursday fielding further concerns from Democratic members, leaving some expressing doubt about how successful the vote will be on what’s now the sixth version of this stablecoin bill.

The House of Representatives has been working on a similar bill that would eventually needed to be melded with this one before it can become law, but the Senate has long been the bottleneck for advancing crypto bills, and it promises to be the more difficult venue for clearing the industry’s efforts.

«We have the opportunity to move the ball forward today,» Thune said. «I encourage my colleagues to take it.»

Read More: Dems Stall Stablecoin Bill, Jeopardizing More Important Crypto Regulation Bill