Key Takeaways
- •JPMorgan believes Bitcoin’s recent dip hit a true price floor based on rising mining costs around $94,000.
- •The bank forecasts a potential surge toward $170,000 within 6–12 months due to a widening valuation gap with gold.
- •Analysts say miner production costs, not market fear, are driving the next phase of Bitcoin’s trend.
Production Costs Drive JPMorgan’s Call
According to the banking giant, the most important chart this week wasn’t Bitcoin’s price — it was the climbing cost of production. JPMorgan analysts, led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, believe the true story lies in the rising difficulty of mining. Their model suggests miners now spend roughly $94,000 to produce a single bitcoin, up from $92,000 just weeks ago. Because mining difficulty and energy expenditure directly determine the marginal cost of supply, the bank argues that this figure now represents a natural floor under the market.
Why a Miner-Driven Floor Matters
Whenever the price falls toward miners’ production cost, JPMorgan says historical behavior repeats: miners stop selling aggressively, supply tightens and forced capitulation disappears. And with margins already razor-thin, the bank believes miners have little incentive to add selling pressure at current levels. If that dynamic holds, the sell-off that pushed Bitcoin below $100,000 may have already exhausted itself.
The Next Major Move Could Aim for $170K
What has generated the most surprise, however, is not JPMorgan’s bottom call — but its upside target. The bank estimates that Bitcoin could advance toward $170,000 over the next 6–12 months, driven not by narratives but by mathematics. The analysts point to the volatility relationship between Bitcoin and gold, which has fallen to its lowest point in years. With the volatility ratio now below 2.0, Bitcoin is behaving increasingly like gold while still trading at a fraction of its valuation.
A Closing of the Gold Valuation Gap
With gold sitting on a $28.3 trillion market cap, JPMorgan argues that Bitcoin remains significantly undervalued relative to its risk profile. To close even part of that valuation gap, the crypto asset would need to rise by around 60%–70%, leading directly to the bank’s $170,000 price projection. Support for a gold-parity scenario is not limited to JPMorgan: industry figures including Michael Saylor and Changpeng Zhao have publicly predicted that Bitcoin will eventually overtake gold’s market cap, though the timeline remains uncertain.
Cost Curves vs Market Emotion
The timing of the call is striking. The crypto market remains gripped by fear after weeks of volatility, yet JPMorgan insists the mechanism underpinning Bitcoin remains intact: when sentiment collapses and liquidity tightens, miners naturally defend the price floor by limiting supply. That defense, historically, has laid the foundation for the next advance.
For now, traders are watching candles. JPMorgan is watching cost curves. And if the bank is right, the price bottom didn’t arrive when people expected it — it arrived when almost nobody believed it had.