Berenberg raised its bitcoin (BTC) price forecast for April 2024 to $56,630, the investment bank said in an analyst report Wednesday. The world's largest cryptocurrency by market value was trading around $30,800 at publication time.

“Supporting our expectation that bitcoin will appreciate significantly in the coming months is improved sentiment driven by anticipation of the bitcoin halving estimated to occur in April 2024, and keen interest demonstrated by large institutions,” analysts led by Mark Palmer wrote.

The bank reiterated its buy rating on stock of MicroStrategy, a business intelligence software developer that has invested heavily in bitcoin, and raised its share price target to $510 from $430 due to a higher estimate of the value of the company’s BTC holdings and improved forecast for the value of its software business. The shares closed Tuesday at $411.18.

The bank said it was raising its estimates for the value of the company's bitcoin holdings as of late April 2024 to $8.74 billion from $6.27 billion. It increased its estimate for the value of the business intelligence software business to $1.37 billion from $859 million.

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Will Canny

Will Canny is an experienced market reporter with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry. He's now covering the crypto beat as a finance reporter at CoinDesk. He owns more than $1,000 of SOL.