Ethereum could reach $8,000 by the end of 2026 from the current price of $1,600, Standard Chartered predicts. Geoffrey Kendrick, Head of Forex and Cryptocurrency Research at Standard Chartered, said: “We think Ethereum’s established dominance in smart contract platforms, along with emerging uses in gaming and tokenization, has the potential to push ETH to the $8,000 level by end-2026 (a 5x multiple from the current price of $1,600).”
The $8,000 level is seen as the first step to the bank’s “structural” valuation estimate of $26,000-$35,000.
The Bitcoin Halving event in April 2024 will also be the driving force for all digital assets, especially ETH – the second largest cryptocurrency on the market. Furthermore, ETF spot regulation in the US will benefit ETH as much as BTC, which is expected to happen by the end of 2024, after the US election.
Therefore, ETH can completely reach $4,000 by the end of 2024, but still lower than the peak of $4,866 set at the end of 2021. Layer-2 solutions will also benefit thanks to Ethereum’s upcoming technical upgrades, such as proto-danksharding, which helps to minimize transaction fees on these platforms. Ethereum’s dominance in the smart contract space will be further reinforced, Geoffrey added.
In April this year, Kendrick even predicted that Bitcoin could hit $100,000 by the end of next year. He believes that by then the crypto winter will be over. Analysts from JPMorgan Chase have projected a $45,000 bull case scenario price for Bitcoin if it is compared to Gold in private investors’ portfolios in risk capital or [volume]-adjusted terms.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $26,812, fluctuating strongly in the past few days amid the Israel-Hamas conflict. In addition, Bitcoin Dominance rate – which tracks the largest cryptocurrency’s share of the total digital asset market – rose to over 51%, nearing a two-year high of 52% at the end of June 2023.