Standard Chartered says Ethereum’s network activity remains close to record levels even as Ether (ETH) trades far below last year’s highs, arguing that the gap between usage and price could eventually narrow.
Ethereum’s internal metrics, including transaction counts and total value locked in ETH terms, remain close to record levels, according to a Thursday report from Standard Chartered’s digital assets research team. ETH has fallen about 57% from its August 2025 peak of above $4,800 to under $2,000 at the time of writing, according to Coingecko data.
StanChart’s global head of digital assets research, Geoff Kendrick, reaffirmed its price targets of $4,000 by the end of 2026 and $40,000 by 2030, implying a return of the ETH/BTC ratio to its 2021 highs around 0.08.
The call comes as investors debate whether Ethereum’s growing dominance in stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets will eventually translate into stronger returns for ETH itself, despite persistent ETF outflows and weak price performance.
Kendrick likened the current disconnect to Amazon during the dot-com bust, arguing that “everything inside the company was going the right way” even as the stock price slumped.
ETH price over the last year. Source: Coingecko
Max Shannon, senior research associate Europe at Bitwise, agreed with Standard Chartered’s Amazon analogy, telling Cointelegraph it relates to Ethereum’s “lack of narrative” and “lack of value accrual from cheap layer-1 and layer-2 transactions.”
He said value accrual can improve as onchain assets and their velocity grow and as users pay higher gas fees for premium services such as zero-knowledge transactions, pre-confirmations, maximal extractable value, and large institutional trades.
Ethereum main settlement layer for stablecoins and RWAs
The report highlights Ethereum’s role as the main settlement layer for stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets, projecting that stablecoin market capitalization will grow sixfold to about $2 trillion by 2028 and tokenized non-stablecoin assets will expand 50-fold to a similar size, with Ethereum currently hosting roughly half to two-thirds of each market.
Related: Ethereum treasury firms lean on staking as ETF pressure builds: Report
Transactions on Ethereum reached an all-time high of more than 3.6 million on April 28 and have since dropped to around 2.2 million on Thursday, according to Etherscan. Total value locked in decentralized finance has dropped from around $97 billion in August to $41.65 billion on May 27, according to data from DeFiLlama.
Ethereum transactions per day, all time. Source: Etherscan
Justin d’Anethan, head of research at Arctic Digital, a crypto private markets advisory firm, told Cointelegraph that it is “heartwarming to see a traditional bank stick to their thesis,” despite overall disappointing market sentiment. He said that, in crypto, price is “often its own narrative,” and fundamental value is “an afterthought.”
Mixed signals across the market
Other market signals are more nuanced. Bitmine Immersion Technologies, the largest public buyer of ETH by far, currently owning over 5,300,000 ETH, doubled down on its expectations of a supercycle this week, citing Wall Street’s interest in tokenization and artificial intelligence-powered agents.
ETH ETF outflows hit 11th consecutive day. Source: Farside Investors
That optimism contrasts with a wave of departures from the Ethereum Foundation and public skepticism from some long-time Ethereum commentators over how much of the network’s growth will ultimately accrue to ETH itself.
US spot ETH exchange-traded funds add another layer to the picture. Farside ETH ETF data shows the products posted a $67.1 million net outflow on May 27, marking 11 consecutive days of withdrawals, even after seeing stronger inflow sessions earlier in the year.
D’Anethan said the question remains whether Ethereum’s tailwinds will outpace Bitcoin’s in the long term, pointing out that previous cycles in which altcoins outperformed BTC no longer hold. “It’ll be interesting to see where large trading firms, institutions, sovereign funds and nation-states ultimately place their bets,” he said.
Shannon said that Biwise’s Factor Model shows the momentum has mostly been driven by Bitcoin and that approximately 80% of ETH price variation can be explained by BTC. “Macro, equities and fundamental drivers such as active addresses have all taken a back seat,” he said.
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