Standard Chartered analyst Geoff Kendrick has expressed confidence in a bullish long-term outlook for Ethereum, despite the cryptocurrency’s recent price decline. Kendrick argues that the current disconnect between Ethereum’s improving internal metrics and its lagging price is temporary and anticipates a significant upward adjustment in the future.
As of now, Ethereum has dropped approximately 57% from its peak of about $4,900 in August 2025, settling around $2,100. In tandem, the ETH-BTC ratio has fallen by 37% during this period. Despite these price declines, Kendrick highlights that transaction numbers and the total value locked in Ethereum, measured in ETH, remain near all-time highs, indicating robust underlying activity on the network.
To contextualize the current situation, Standard Chartered drew a parallel with Amazon during the early 2000s dot-com bust, referencing Jeff Bezos’s remarks that while the company’s stock price was declining, its fundamental operations were thriving. This analogy implies that similar dynamics are at play with Ethereum, as the bank believes there is considerable potential for the Ethereum price to realign with its internal metrics.
Standard Chartered has reaffirmed its price forecasts for Ethereum, projecting a target of $4,000 by the end of 2026 and an ambitious $40,000 by the end of 2030. Achieving these targets would return the ETH-BTC ratio to its heights of around 0.08 witnessed in 2021.
Kendrick’s bullish outlook is supported by Ethereum’s dominant position in two key sectors: stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets. The bank anticipates substantial growth in both areas, with projections that the stablecoin market cap could increase sixfold by the end of 2028. Additionally, tokenized non-stablecoin real-world assets are expected to multiply 50 times within the same timeframe. Currently, Ethereum captures between 50% to 65% of both markets, which collectively account for over half of the total value locked within the network.
As the cryptocurrency market evolves, the longer-term outlook for Ethereum appears promising amidst current price challenges, reinforcing the potential for significant future gains.
