UK mega bank Standard Chartered sees ETH price rising to $26,000 per token in the medium-term, although the bank thinks it could go even higher. According to its Ethereum Investor Report (PDF), the current Ethereum price is too low, and doesn’t take into account the functionality of the platform.
Standard Chartered commented in the report,
“A range of USD 26,000-35,000 may appear high compared to the current ETH price (just below USD 4,000), but we think the current price reflects both the relative complexity of ETH (versus BTC) and the uncertainty around ETHs development.”
While Bitcoin is many years older than Ethereum, it is a far more basic system. Ethereum introduced new token types, like NFTs, which offer tremendous value to the overall platform.
It appears that Standard Chartered sees this value, and thinks Ethereum may be able to prosper from wider use, as well as better understanding on what its capacities truly are. The bank also sees Bitcoin rising from present levels by next year, with a level of $100,000 being predicted.
Ethereum Has Rallied Hard
Ethereum has done well so far in 2021, with a year-over-year gain of more than 900% at the time of writing. Despite this big rally, Standard Chartered sees the token going up by another 500%, at least, and in a short amount of time to boot.
The banks stated that it sees, “the Ethereum-Bitcoin cross doubling to 0.161, a level at which ETH’s market cap would catch up to BTC’s.”
So – not only does it see Ethereum gaining in value when measured by fiat currency, it also thinks that Ethereum’s overall value will match Bitcoin’s in the coming year. To be sure, these are bold predictions, but they may very well come to pass.
A Strong Buy
Ethereum has a lot going for it. As a platform, it offers investors and users a lot of technology. It is still one of the most popular blockchain development spaces, and numerous other tokens have emulated its feature set.
While there are other platforms out there which offer more in the way of functionality, like TRON or Cardano, neither platform has been able to match the popularity of Ethereum. While this may change in the coming years, at the moment, Ethereum may be the most attractive major token in the marketplace.
In addition to dev support, Ethereum has also been a hit with the mainstream investment community. It is widely held by investors via trusts, and is also traded in derivative form on major exchanges.
Difficult to Ignore
An asset that delivers nearly a 10x return in a year is difficult to ignore, especially when it is deeply liquid and well capitalized.
Of course, there may also be pullbacks ahead, especially if we see money flow into cash and bonds. The last 14 months have been amazing in numerous markets, cryptos included. This has been a one way trade, with asset prices blasting higher across the board.
Unfortunately, some of the assets that have been rallying are commodities, which means that people are paying more for almost everything. Central banks are starting to look for ways to curb market liquidity, which may not be great for cryptos in the latter half of 2021.
As we saw in the spring of 2020, crypto are now connected to the movements in major markets, so if the NASDAQ catches a cold, Ethereum may take a big blow. We simply can’t know, but this is a risk that anyone who holds tokens as an investment should understand.
On a longer timeline, Standard Chartered is likely correct – and Ethereum is going higher. It may even eclipse the levels that Standard Chartered predicted, especially if we see bigger problems in the fiat currency ecosystem.
