Standard Chartered Upholds $40K Ethereum Decade Target

Standard Chartered reaffirmed a $40,000 end-of-decade target and a $4,000 year-end forecast for Ethereum in a note released Thursday, pointing to rising activity in decentralized finance, stablecoins and tokenized assets.

The bank’s analysts highlighted a gap between Ethereum’s market price, near $2,000, and on-chain usage. Ethereum has declined roughly 60% from an August peak near $5,000. By comparison, bitcoin is about 42% below its October high of $126,000, trading near $72,800.

Analysts noted stablecoins account for about one-third of Ethereum transaction volume year-to-date. The note referenced an industry estimate that roughly 65% of tokenized assets sit on Ethereum, and said increased tokenization by financial institutions would raise transaction counts and total value locked on the network.

Standard Chartered pointed to technical changes that have lowered transaction costs. A 2024 upgrade created savings for layer-2 scaling solutions, pushing gas fees to historic lows. Because a portion of gas fees is burned, lower fee structures can still reduce circulating supply over time and change inflation dynamics.

The Ethereum Foundation is backing an “economic zone” expected this summer to allow digital assets to move more freely across networks built on top of Ethereum. The bank said that easier cross-network transfers should increase on-chain activity.

The note discussed the potential impact of regulation, saying legislation that sets standards for DeFi could make decentralized products more accessible to traditional institutions and increase demand for ETH as a settlement asset and scarce token.

The analysts quoted Jeff Bezos’s defense of Amazon in the early 2000s: “While the stock price was going the wrong way, everything inside the company was going the right way.” The note added that the analysts see parallels with Ethereum’s current price and reaffirmed their bullish forecasts.

Short-term sentiment on prediction markets remains cautious. One platform assigns a 65% chance that ETH will next fall to $1,500 rather than rise to $3,000. Standard Chartered’s targets reflect a longer time horizon tied to continued tokenization, more stablecoin activity, scaling improvements and clearer rules for institutional participation.