Standard Chartered Cuts ETH Price Forecast to Just $4,000
Standard Chartered also projects the ETH/BTC ratio to fall to 0.015 by 2027, its lowest level since 2017.
Is ETH Losing Its Presence?
Investment bank Standard Chartered has just released a study stating that Ethereum (ETH) is in a long-term downtrend, while adjusting its price target by the end of 2025 from $10,000 to just $4,000.
At the time of publication, ETH was trading around $1,903, down more than 60% from its all-time high of around $4,878 in November 2021.
The study highlights that ETH is at a crucial crossroads. Although it still leads many indicators, its dominance has been declining for a long time.
One of the main reasons is the rise of layer-2 blockchains, which were designed to scale Ethereum. However, instead of strengthening ETH’s value, layer-2 is reducing ETH’s market capitalization. According to Standard Chartered’s estimates, Coinbase’s Base alone has wiped out $50 billion from ETH’s market capitalization.
The bank predicts that this trend will continue, as more transactions and value move to layer-2 instead of the Ethereum mainnet.
Opportunities for recovery
Despite the decline, the report also points out a number of factors that could help ETH recover. Tokenization of real assets (RWA) could play a key role, as Ethereum still accounts for 80% of the security market share in this space. If RWAs thrive, they could help ETH maintain its position.
However, to truly reverse the decline, the Ethereum Foundation needs to make strategic reforms, such as imposing a layer-2 tax to retain value on the mainnet. However, Standard Chartered rates this possibility very low.
ETH underperforms BTC
In addition to Ethereum's difficulties, Standard Chartered also forecasts the ETH/BTC ratio, showing that ETH will continue to weaken compared to Bitcoin. The bank believes that the ETH/BTC ratio will fall to 0.015 by the end of 2027, the lowest level since 2017.
Although ETH prices may increase from current levels by about $1,900, thanks to Bitcoin's rally that has dragged the entire crypto market along, ETH will continue to be inferior to BTC in the long term.
Despite lowering the short-term outlook, Standard Chartered still believes that ETH will increase in price over time, reaching $7,500 in 2028-2029.
In early March, Standard Chartered predicted that Bitcoin would fall to the $69,000 - $76,500 range in the first week of the month, due to pressure from ETFs to divest. In fact, the king coin fell to $76,606 on March 11, not quite matching the bank's prediction but still quite a sharp drop from the $95,000 peak at the beginning of the month. On a monthly basis, BTC has fallen nearly 15%. Looking further, Standard Chartered targets Bitcoin's price at $500,000 by 2028.
