Ether in Structural Decline, Year-End Price Target Slashed to $4K: Standard Chartered
Layer 2 blockchains were meant to improve scalability on the Ethereum network, but Coinbase's Base has reduced ether's market cap by $50 billion, the report said.

What to know:
- Standard Chartered cut its year-end 2025 ether target to $4,000 from $10,000.
- Layer 2 blockchains such as Coinbase's Base have reduced ether's market cap.
- Ether is expected to recover from current levels, but will continue to underperform, the report said.
Ether's
Standard Chartered said it now sees ether at $4,000 at the end of the year, down from $10,000 previously. Ether was trading around $1,903 at publication time.
"Ether is at a crossroads," the report said, and while it "still dominates on several metrics," this dominance has been falling for some time.
Layer 2 blockchains were meant to improve scalability on the Ethereum blockchain, but Standard Chartered estimates that Coinbase's (COIN) Base has reduced ether's market cap by $50 billion, and said it expects this trend to continue.
Market forces could eventually stop this structural decline, "especially if tokenized real-world assets were to grow significantly," as "ETH's security dominance means it should maintain its 80% share of this market," wrote Geoff Kendrick, head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered.
Still, "Only a proactive change of commercial direction from the Ethereum Foundation – such as taxing layer 2s – could achieve that now," which the bank said was unlikely.
Standard Chartered said its expects the ETH/BTC ratio to decline to 0.015 by year-end 2027, the lowest level since 2017.
The bank still sees a recovery in the ether price from the current level around $1,900, as a rally in
Read more: Ether Has Underperformed, but Total Value Locked on Ethereum Is Rising: Citi
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Solana CME Futures Fell Short of BTC and ETH Debuts, but There's a Catch

When adjusted for asset market capitalization SOL's relative futures volume looks better, K33 Research noted.
需要了解的:
- Solana's SOL futures began trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) on Monday, with a notional daily volume of $12.3 million and $7.8 million in open interest, significantly lower than the debuts of bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) futures.
- Despite the seemingly lackluster debut, when adjusted to market value, SOL's first-day figures are more in line with BTC's and ETH's, according to K33 Research.
- Despite the bearish market conditions, the launch of CME SOL futures offers new ways for institutions to manage their exposure to the token, said Joshua Lim of FalconX.