Standard Chartered: Ether's structural decline expected to continue, cuts year-end price target to $4,000

The structural decline in ethereum (ETH) is expected to continue, Standard Chartered said in a research report published on Monday, as the investment bank reportedly cut its price target for ethereum to $4,000 by the end of 2025, down sharply from $10,000 previously.

‘Ether is at a crossroads,’ Standard Chartered noted in its report, and while “it remains dominant on a number of metrics,” that dominance has been declining for some time. The second layer of the blockchain was originally intended to improve the scalability of the Ether blockchain, but Standard Chartered estimates that Coinbase's Base has reduced Ether's market capitalisation by $50bn and expects this trend to continue, the report said.

Geoff Kendrick, Head of Digital Asset Research at Standard Chartered, said that market forces may ultimately halt this structural decline, ‘especially if tokenised physical assets grow significantly’, as ‘ETH's secure dominance means it should maintain an 80% share of this market ‘. However, ‘only a proactive change in business direction by the Ether Foundation - such as a tax on Layer 2 - would make this possible’, but the bank believes this is unlikely.

Standard Chartered expects the ETH/BTC ratio to fall to 0.015 by the end of 2027, which would be the lowest level since 2017. Nonetheless, the bank still expects the Ether price to recover from its current level of around $1,900, as Bitcoin's (BTC) rally is expected to boost all digital assets, but Ether's underperformance is set to continue.