Bitcoin’s dramatic price swings throughout 2026 have left forecasters sharply divided over whether the cryptocurrency will reclaim the $100,000 threshold before the year ends, with predictions ranging from continued sub-$50,000 declines to bullish targets well above $150,000, even as a powerful rally this week has renewed hope among bulls.

The cryptocurrency has surged nearly 22% over the past five trading days, climbing above $77,000 as of Friday, according to multiple market trackers, its highest level since early June. That rally has been driven by a combination of U.S. Treasury moves to expand long-term bond buybacks, renewed optimism around pending crypto legislation known as the CLARITY Act, and a wave of short-position liquidations across derivatives markets. Even with that advance, bitcoin remains well below its October 2025 all-time high of $126,000, a peak from which the cryptocurrency has fallen more than 50% at various points this year, briefly touching a 21-month low near $58,000, according to CoinGecko.

That volatility underscores just how uncertain the path to $100,000 remains, even among analysts who believe it is achievable. Standard Chartered has forecast bitcoin reaching $100,000 by year-end, according to KuCoin, while other institutions have offered considerably more bullish targets: Arthur Hayes of Maelstrom projected $125,000, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse forecast $180,000, and JPMorgan analysts set a target of $170,000, based on the premise that bitcoin’s role in institutional portfolios could increasingly resemble that of gold. Fundstrat’s Tom Lee projected a range of $150,000 to $200,000, while Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor has continued articulating a far longer-term thesis in which bitcoin eventually absorbs significant value from gold, real estate and other traditional stores of value, potentially reaching multimillion-dollar valuations over a longer time horizon.

Not every forecaster has shared that optimism. Crypto market analyst Aralez, publishing detailed monthly price projections in early June, argued bitcoin remained in a persistent bear market that had not yet reached its final bottom. According to Memeburn’s breakdown of his forecast, Aralez projected bitcoin would complete a bearish move toward $60,000 in June, before falling further to around $53,000 in July. He anticipated a short-lived relief rally into the $65,000 to $68,000 range by August, one he cautioned could prove to be a “bull trap” rather than a genuine recovery, with his model pointing to a final capitulation low near $46,000 in October before a broader Q4 recovery that he projected could ultimately push bitcoin back toward $100,000 by year-end.

Other on-chain analysts have offered similarly cautious near-term outlooks. According to Memeburn, on-chain analyst Ali Martinez predicted a bear market bottom around October 2026, in the range of $37,500 to $38,000, a considerably lower floor than some of the more optimistic institutional forecasts circulating earlier in the year.

Prediction markets have offered a more skeptical read on bitcoin’s odds of reaching six figures again this year. According to a Motley Fool analysis citing the Polymarket platform, bitcoin had only a 17% chance of reclaiming the $100,000 level in 2026 as of that assessment, compared with a 35% chance of falling below $40,000, a 15% chance of dropping below $30,000, and a 7% chance of crashing below $20,000. Those odds reflected a period earlier this year when bitcoin was down nearly 30%, a stretch the Motley Fool described as “one of the most disappointing” years for bitcoin investors in the cryptocurrency’s history at that point, even as the outlet’s own analyst maintained a contrarian view that a recovery to $100,000 remained achievable given bitcoin’s historically cyclical trading patterns.

CNBC’s survey of institutional forecasts published in January offered a broader sense of how widely predictions have varied even among professional analysts. Bernstein’s Gautam Chhugani argued that 2026 could prove to be a strong year for bitcoin, supported by potential interest rate cuts and a more accommodating regulatory environment for cryptocurrency, while cautioning that “heightened volatility is likely amid ongoing macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties.” CNBC noted that Chhugani’s track record on prior-year forecasts had been mixed; his December 2024 prediction that bitcoin could fall to around $80,000 in 2025 proved accurate, while his separate forecast that bitcoin could trade between $180,000 and $190,000 that same year did not materialize.

At the more extreme end of the forecasting spectrum, some crypto industry figures have projected valuations far beyond $100,000. Blockstream co-founder Adam Back and JAN3 CEO Samson Mow have both suggested bitcoin could eventually reach $1 million, according to KuCoin, forecasts that represent a small but vocal segment of long-term bitcoin maximalists whose price targets extend well beyond the more conventional institutional projections offered by firms such as JPMorgan and Standard Chartered.

Underlying much of the disagreement among forecasters is genuine uncertainty over several key macroeconomic variables that could significantly influence bitcoin’s trajectory over the remainder of the year, including the pace and scale of Federal Reserve interest rate decisions, whether Congress advances the stalled CLARITY Act establishing clearer regulatory boundaries for digital assets, and how broader geopolitical developments, including the ongoing conflict between the United States and Iran, continue to influence investor appetite for risk assets more generally.

The scale of bitcoin’s volatility this year has itself become a central theme of coverage on the topic. CoinGecko’s analysis noted that a widely cited $143,000 price target circulating earlier in the year “once looked compelling on its own terms,” but that the intervening months instead saw bitcoin fall more than 50% from its October 2025 peak before beginning to recover, illustrating that “whatever target an analyst is calling for, the path there is unlikely to be a straight line.”

Given the current rally’s strength, bitcoin’s proximity to $78,000 puts it roughly 22% below the $100,000 threshold as of this week, a gap that would require sustained additional gains, rather than a single dramatic move, to close before the end of the year. Whether the current rally proves durable or gives way to renewed volatility, as several analysts have cautioned could happen, remains the central question shaping bitcoin’s prospects of reclaiming six-figure territory in 2026. As with any highly volatile asset, none of the price targets discussed here should be treated as guaranteed outcomes, and anyone considering an investment decision based on bitcoin’s price trajectory should weigh the significant disagreement among professional forecasters alongside their own research and risk tolerance.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is expanding his economic pressure campaign against Iran, betting that intensified sanctions and financial restrictions can succeed where military strikes and diplomacy have so far failed to force Tehran to accept U.S. demands, as the conflict between the two countries enters its seventh month.

Trump announced what he described as the “most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country” against Iran, according to CNBC, warning that any nation providing financial or commercial assistance to Tehran would face severe consequences. Speaking during a meeting with cryptocurrency executives at the White House on Aug. 19, Trump characterized the planned campaign as an “Economic D-Day” for Iran, extending a pressure effort the administration has waged since April under the internal designation Operation Economic Fury.

The shift toward economic pressure comes as other avenues for ending the conflict have stalled. According to NPR, U.S. stockpiles of key munitions have dwindled and stop-start diplomatic talks between Washington and Tehran have once again broken down, prompting Trump to return to what the outlet described as a familiar playbook of financial sanctions rather than continued military escalation. Trump has previously said he began the war with Iran only after 50 years of economic pressure had failed to halt the country’s nuclear ambitions, but he is now betting that a renewed financial squeeze can bring the conflict to a close.

According to Bloomberg, the administration’s approach centers on a steady increase in economic sanctions combined with a naval blockade aimed at stifling Iran’s oil exports, reflecting a broader recognition within the administration that the military campaign against Iran has so far failed to force the regime to capitulate. Options reportedly under consideration include targeting Chinese banks involved in Iranian oil transactions, expanding secondary sanctions on countries or entities doing business with Tehran, and potentially confiscating Iranian assets held under U.S. jurisdiction, according to reporting from News Talk WBAP.

CNN reported that the U.S. imposed new sanctions on Hezbollah as part of the broader pressure campaign, even as the outlet cautioned that unless the administration develops new methods to quickly cut off Tehran’s revenue streams, it will likely once again confront a regime well-practiced in evading sanctions. According to CNN, Iran has spent decades building a complex network of front companies, largely tied to China, to procure essential goods for its 92 million citizens, while also developing methods to continue exporting oil using fleets of sanctioned “dark” tankers that disable their tracking systems to transfer cargo to other vessels before ultimately delivering it to Beijing, Iran’s principal oil customer.

Iran’s response to the escalating economic threats has been defiant. The Iranian Foreign Ministry condemned Trump’s threat as “unlawful,” according to CNN, warning in a statement that those who order or implement the sanctions “are liable to prosecution and punishment.” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps separately warned it could deploy more “destructive” weapons should the broader conflict resume in earnest, according to Iranian state media cited by CNN.

Some Iranian officials have responded to the intensified pressure by calling for even more dramatic countermeasures. Iranian member of parliament Ebrahim Rezaei suggested Iran should consider withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in response to Trump’s economic escalation. “The best response to Trump’s escalation of the economic war is to withdraw from the NPT,” Rezaei said, according to Time. Iran signed the treaty in 1968 and ratified it in 1970, committing as a non-nuclear-weapon state not to manufacture or acquire nuclear weapons, a commitment that would be directly called into question should the country follow through on withdrawing from the agreement.

The escalating economic pressure has already produced tangible ripple effects across the region. Time reported that the United Arab Emirates, a major regional trading hub for Iran, announced it would suspend trade with Tehran following reported missile strikes, a decision that came just one day before Trump’s latest threat of a “crushing” economic campaign.

Vice President JD Vance has emphasized that economic pressure represents the administration’s most viable current strategy for ending the conflict, according to CNN, even as officials have simultaneously stressed the importance of keeping oil and gas prices affordable for American consumers, a balancing act that has grown more difficult as prices have climbed amid continued disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump has consistently maintained that he is not operating under any specific timeline for resolving the conflict, despite the mounting economic and political costs associated with its continuation. “I have no time schedule. I’m not in a hurry,” Trump said, according to World Israel News, a stance he has repeated even as U.S. borrowing costs have climbed to their highest levels in nearly two decades and oil prices have risen amid the ongoing disruption.

The political costs of the prolonged conflict appear to be mounting domestically as Trump approaches the 2026 midterm elections. According to News Talk WBAP, a Reuters/Ipsos survey found Trump’s approval rating at 33%, the lowest level of his presidency, with roughly 80% of respondents saying they expected U.S. involvement in the conflict with Iran to continue for an extended period.

The Trump administration’s underlying strategic bet is that Iran’s worsening economy and domestic unrest will eventually force Tehran back to the negotiating table on terms more favorable to Washington. Iran, according to News Talk WBAP, appears to be making the opposite calculation, betting instead that the United States will ultimately face greater political and economic costs from a prolonged conflict than Iran itself will, particularly given the toll an unpopular and costly war has taken on both U.S. public opinion and military resources.

This latest pressure campaign builds on a broader pattern established earlier in Trump’s second term. The administration had already reinstated its “maximum pressure” policy on Iran in February 2025, according to Radio Farda, directing the Treasury Department to impose maximum economic pressure through sanctions and enforcement mechanisms targeting individuals and entities violating existing sanctions, with an explicit goal of driving Iran’s oil exports to zero. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reinforced that objective in subsequent remarks, telling the Economic Club of New York that the administration intended to shut down Iran’s oil industry entirely and cut off Tehran’s access to the international financial system.

As the conflict continues without a clear resolution in sight, both sides appear increasingly committed to a war of economic attrition, with Washington wagering that sustained financial pressure will eventually break Tehran’s resistance, and Iran betting that its historical resilience to sanctions, built over decades of prior U.S. and international pressure campaigns, will allow it to outlast the current effort regardless of the mounting toll on its own economy and population.

Luigi Lovaglio
CEO, GM & Director

Good morning. Thank you for joining us. Today, we are presenting not only two transactions, we are presenting a vision. Over the last years, Monte Paschi has completed one of the most remarkable transformations in European banking. We restored profitability, we rebuilt capital strength, we regained strategic freedom. Through Mediobanca, we added capabilities in corporate and investment banking, wealth management, consumer finance, and advisory.

The question before us is, therefore, not how to become larger. The question is how to become more relevant. And today, we have the opportunity to take the next strategic step. That’s why we are here to present two voluntary public exchange offers for Banco BPM and Banca Generali. They are legally separate transactions, but they form one coherent industrial project: the creation of an elevated national champion across banking, advisory, and wealth management.

The project will bring to a strong and comprehensive Italian financial platform, bringing together a unique combination of complementary strengths: commercial banking, corporate investment banking, wealth management, and also insurance capabilities.

All of them integrated within a single industrial platform. The uniqueness of this transaction does not stem from scale alone; it stems from bringing together capabilities that today coexist within few institutions in Italy.

The

The “One Bite” pizza reviewer and Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy threw his support behind Yum! Brands’ campaign to temporarily rebrand Pizza Hut, praising the pizza chain’s strategic marketing move as “brilliant” while pitching company executives on directing advertising dollars toward Barstool Sports during football season.

“At first, I didn’t really get it. But I’ll say this, Stuart. We do business with Pizza Hut. And we want them to spend lots of money with Barstool. So I think it’s a brilliant move. Whoever came up with that, I like it,” Portnoy said on “Varney & Co.” Friday.

“They’re thinking smart. It’s football season. There it is, the football with the ‘Hut.’ And you know, they’re gonna spread this message. They gotta find some new media vehicles that cover football,” he continued, “and maybe do a little bit of an ad spend to let people know what’s going on so they don’t get confused.”

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FOX Business host Stuart Varney replied: “And Barstool Sports is ideally situated to pick up a little pizza business, right?”

David Portnoy of Barstool Sports on May 11, 2019, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. (Getty Images)

“You don’t say!” Portnoy responded.

On Wednesday, the chain announced that it will go by “Hut” for the next 25 weeks, coinciding with the 2026 NFL season.

“You can just call us HUT for the next 25 weeks,” Pizza Hut wrote in a social media post announcing the temporary rebrand.

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The company showed off the change at a restaurant in Plano, Texas, where a banner featuring a football covered the word “Pizza” on the restaurant’s exterior sign. Pizza Hut, which is headquartered in Plano, also changed its social media profile images to a logo without the word “Pizza.”

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FOX Business’ Brittany Miller contributed to this report.

Nearly 40,000 bottles of eye drops are being recalled nationwide due to potential contamination, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Tarrytown, New York-based Prestige Brand Holdings is voluntarily recalling 39,060 bottles of its Clear Eyes Maximum Itchy Eye Relief eye drops due to a “lack of assurance of sterility,” according to an FDA enforcement report.

The affected product comes in 15-milliliter bottles with the lot code 2552A and an expiration date of Sep. 30, 2027. They were distributed by Medtech Products Inc., a Prestige Consumer Healthcare company.

NEARLY 12 MILLION BOTTLES OF ROHTO EYE DROPS RECALLED OVER STERILITY CONCERNS, FDA ANNOUNCES

Nearly 40,000 bottles of eye drops are being recalled nationwide due to potential contamination. (Getty Images)

The FDA classified the recall as a Class II recall, which it describes as a “situation in which use of or exposure to a violative product may cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences or where the probability of serious adverse health consequences is remote.”

MILLIONS OF PRESCRIPTION EYE DROPS RECALLED NATIONWIDE OVER CONTAMINATION CONCERNS

Other brands in the Prestige portfolio include Dramamine, Luden’s and Anacin.

The FDA classified the recall as a Class II recall. (Getty Images)

The company completed the acquisition of the Breathe Right brand – known for its nasal strips – and other assets from Foundation Consumer ​Healthcare in June in a deal valued at about $1.05 billion.

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FOX Business reached out to Prestige Brands for comment.

The US national debt has more than doubled in a decade to reach a milestone $40tn (£29.4tn), Treasury figures show. The rise reflects years of heavy spending under both the Donald Trump and Joe Biden administrations, along with higher interest payments that have steadily added to the total. In 2016, the national debt stood at just under $20tn.

The BBC’s Nathalie Jimenez explains how the debt can affect American consumers and the entire world.

A California helicopter manufacturer whose R66 helicopter was selected for use in a major new U.S. Army flight training program said the effort could support hundreds of American jobs.

Robinson Helicopter Company, based in Torrance, California, will provide its R66 turbine helicopter for the Army’s Flight School Next program as part of a team led by M1 Support Services.

The program will train the next generation of Army helicopter pilots at Fort Rucker, Alabama. The R66 was selected as the team’s aircraft for the Army’s Initial Entry Rotary-Wing training program.

“Robinson didn’t just check the boxes; it blew past them, beating out competitors on price, performance and resiliency,” company spokesperson Erica Dumas told FOX Business.

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Robinson Helicopter Company will provide its R66 turbine helicopter for the Army’s Flight School Next program as part of a team led by M1 Support Services. (Robinson Helicopter Company)

Robinson Helicopter CEO David Smith said the selection shows that an American-made aircraft can compete with foreign-built products in a critical military training role.

“This is a really powerful demonstration of American-made displacing what are currently foreign products that occupy this very important role of training Army aviators,” Smith told FOX Business. 

Smith said the program will create demand for maintenance workers, instructors and overhaul specialists in Alabama while also driving additional work at Robinson’s California factory.

“There’s an opportunity for us to both sell these aircraft and the parts that feed them for 26 years,” he said, adding that future exports to allied nations could help create “likely hundreds of jobs over time” in Torrance, California.

Robinson says the R66 is 100% U.S.-designed and manufactured, with more than 85% of its parts produced at the company’s vertically integrated Torrance facility.

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Robinson President and CEO David Smith said the selection shows that an American-made aircraft can compete with foreign-built products. (FOX Business)

“We absolutely have the skills, the resources to design, the resources to innovate, and ultimately to make the hard manufactured products that build these products,” Smith said.

The company says the R66 has the lowest acquisition price and direct operating cost of any turbine helicopter in its class over the past decade while giving Army pilots experience with modern avionics, autopilot systems and night-vision capabilities.

Smith said those savings could allow the Army to redirect funding toward other priorities.

“One of the great benefits of this project is it will help the Army allocate more funding to some of the more significant projects they have [in] the future,” he said.

The contract also advances Robinson’s expansion into defense.

“This is a way for us to contribute directly to an area of great need,” he said.

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The contract also advances Robinson’s expansion into defense. (Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Smith also argued that rebuilding America’s defense industrial base will require renewed emphasis on skilled trades.

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“We need to rebuild that first, the appetite and the interest of the workforce to go into these very important skilled areas and make it a fun and cool business to be in again,” Smith said.

Robinson also plans to reinvest proceeds from the program into research and development, including unmanned aircraft and other defense technologies.

“I’m an engineer first,” he said. “And so my mindset is, how can we continue to use wins like this to reinvest in the business and grow in the years to come?”