21Shares says bitcoin's post-halving price action 'still looks familiar,' but sees recovery toward $100,000 by year-end

Zurich-based asset manager 21Shares on Wednesday published its mid-year crypto market report, revisiting its industry forecasts from December and pointing to a $100,000 year-end base case for bitcoin after it peaked near $126,000 in October 2025.

Bitcoin (BTC) traded around $62,300 on Wednesday after gaining nearly 0.3% in the last 24 hours, according to The Block's BTC price page. The asset sits roughly 50% below its all-time high near $126,000 reached last year.

According to the report, bitcoin's price action "still looks familiar," with the pullback tracking closely with historical post-halving patterns. At the same time, the current drawdown remains far milder than the 80% plus corrections of prior cycles. 

The report also noted that bitcoin has continuously stayed above its aggregate investor cost basis of $54,000.

"Notably, bitcoin has also, so far, avoided the outright capitulation that defined earlier downturns — it has not yet traded below its aggregate cost basis of $54,000," the report said, adding that, "these are signs of a more mature market with stickier capital flows."

ETP flows steady as market structure shifts beneath price volatility

Beyond bitcoin's price trajectory, 21Shares' mid-year audit revisited institutional allocation trends across crypto exchange-traded products, alongside developments in DeFi, prediction markets, Ethereum scaling, and real-world asset tokenization.

Global crypto ETP assets under management stood at about $140 billion as of May 2026, down roughly 15% year-to-date, while total holdings reached 1.25 million BTC, about 8% below prior peaks, according to the report. 

21Shares attributed the decline to price shifts rather than broad-based liquidation, noting that underlying BTC allocations have remained close to cycle highs despite roughly $3 billion in net outflows from U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs.

The report also highlighted continued institutional participation through new product launches and ETF expansion beyond spot bitcoin exposure, including early inflows into newer listed products such as Hyperliquid-linked ETFs, which gathered about $150 million in their first month of trading.

Per the report, prediction markets recorded $57.5 billion in trading volume through the end of May, more than half of the firm's full-year projection, with annual volumes tracking toward $100 billion and potentially challenging $200 billion depending on second-half activity tied to the FIFA World Cup and U.S. midterm congressional elections.

In DeFi, total value locked remains around $140 billion, roughly unchanged from earlier in the year and well below the firm's $300 billion forecast, with security incidents cited as a key constraint on capital inflows.

Ethereum Layer 2 networks also continued to consolidate, with Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism capturing about 83% of total Layer 2 DeFi TVL, underscoring what the report described as a concentration of liquidity among a small set of scaling platforms.

Meanwhile, tokenized assets on public blockchains stood at $31 billion, anchored by $15 billion in tokenized U.S. Treasurys, while assets mirrored on permissioned institutional networks like Canton reached approximately $350 billion, according to the report.