Summary
- The bank predicts Ether to increase five-fold, sets end of 2024 target to US $4,000 ($6,250).
- Despite solid year-to-date growth, ETH remains well below all-time highs.
- While some Ethereum ETFs have received approval and others still await a decision, so far uptake is mediocre
Earlier in July, Standard Chartered predicted that Bitcoin (BTC) could be trading at around US $120,000 ($187,000) by the end of 2024. Now, the bank has made another bold prediction, one that will be welcomed by fans of the second-largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum (ETH).
Bank Predicts 500% Increase for ETH
As Reuters reports, Geoff Kendrick, Head of FX Research at Standard Chartered, pointed out where significant demand for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralised finance (DeFi) could take the asset over the next few years.
According to Kendrick, ETH may reach US $4,000 ($6,250) by the end of next year and US $8,000 ($12,500) by the end of 2026.
Kendrick told Reuters, “We see the $8,000 level as a stepping stone to our long-term ‘structural’ valuation estimate of US $26,000-$35,000 ($40,000- $54,000).”
He also believes the Bitcoin halving in April 2024 will impact the price. He stated
It should help lift all boats. Subsequently, potential regulation and spot ETFs in the U.S. should benefit ETH as much as BTC; we pencil this in for late 2024, after the U.S. election.
Geoff KendrickETH Remains Well Below All-Time High
Meanwhile, ETH is up 21.98% this year already according to CoinMarketCap. The second largest crypto by market cap trades for US $1,566.30 ($2,443.22) at the time of writing.
However, despite these gains the price of ETH remains 70% below its all-time high. ETH reached almost US $4,725 ($6,480) in December of 2021.
In addition, the Ethereum Foundation has recently sold a total of 1,700 ETH worth US $2.76 Million ($4.3 million) adding more pressure to the market.
ETH Exchange Traded Funds Coming
In late September the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved several applications for Ethereum Futures ETF for investment managers such as Valkyrie, VanEck, ProShares and others. Grayscale on the other hand is still waiting for a decision on a conversion of its Ethereum Trust (ETHE) into a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF).
The initial market response to the freshly launched ETFs was underwhelming. However, market observers urged for restraint as it is only early days, and current interest for crypto and related products such as ETFs appears very much suppressed for the time being.
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