JPMorgan is sticking to its long-term outlook for bitcoin, including a target of $266,000 per coin, even as the bank shows signs of imminent pressure on mining economics and cooling risk sentiment heading into 2026.
The bank’s latest reading rests on two pillars: a “soft” floor around bitcoin production costs, and a valuation model that shows the potential bitcoin market versus private sector gold investment on a volatile basis.
More recently, JPMorgan is framing the current downgrade as a routine stress test for miners. The bank estimates the cost of producing bitcoin at about $77,000, while bitcoin was trading in the mid-$60,000s in the same analysis window, placing it below breakeven for the less efficient operators.
JP Morgan Remains Bullish on Bitcoin
Historically, JPMorgan says, manufacturing costs have tended to behave more like a “soft” support than a hard line. The mechanism is variable: if prices remain below profitability long enough, weak miners close, difficulty changes, and the average cost of production falls, effectively strengthening the band that has been sitting above the area.
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The bank also maintains its broad market tone for 2026, relying on the idea that institutional money (not retail or corporate stocks) is a buyer that can resume the flow when the main base stabilizes. As JPMorgan puts it: “We are optimistic about the outlook for 2026 and expect an increase in the inflow of digital assets, driven by institutional investors.”
JPMorgan’s $266,000 target was not included as a “call” for 2026, but as a mathematical endpoint for gold’s thought test. In the banking model, matching the scale of private gold investments (about 8 billion dollars, excluding central banks) means a bitcoin value of around 266,000, a level that analysts themselves describe as “absurd” in the near term.
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The bridge between “not real now” and “possible later,” in JPMorgan’s framework, is flexibility. The bank pointed out that the bitcoin-to-gold situation is tense in the world 1.5, which is not unusually high by historical standards and says that the increase in gold since October alongside the increase in the exchange rate of gold has improved the appeal related to bitcoin over time.
“Gold’s strong performance against bitcoin since last October and the sharp increase in gold volatility have led to an even more attractive view of bitcoin against gold in the long term,” the analysts wrote.
The position of JPMorgan effectively divides the tape into two fixed periods: the dirty correction process if bitcoin remains subject to mining violations, and the long-term bet that the entry of the institution and regulatory progress in the US can restore the role of the asset compared to gold as it happens in 2026.
At press time, BTC traded at $66,229.
The featured image was created with DALL.E, a chart from TradingView.com
