TLDR
- Standard Chartered reaffirms its $40,000 ETH price target by end of decade, with $4,000 by year-end 2026
- ETH is down 60% from its August 2025 peak of ~$4,953, currently trading around $2,000
- Ethereum processed over 200 million transactions in Q1 2026, a record quarter
- ETH DeFi total value locked sits at $43B–$45B, representing 53% of all global DeFi liquidity
- The bank’s $40K target assumes an ETH/BTC ratio of 0.08, implying Bitcoin at $500,000
Standard Chartered’s research team published a note on Thursday reaffirming their Ethereum price targets, arguing that ETH’s current price is deeply disconnected from the activity happening on its network.
ETH is trading around $2,000 at time of writing. That’s a 60% drop from its August 2025 peak of roughly $4,953.
For comparison, Bitcoin has fallen about 42% from its all-time high near $126,000 to roughly $72,800. Standard Chartered says the wider gap for Ethereum is not justified by the data.
The bank’s analysts compared Ethereum’s situation to Amazon after the dot-com crash in 2001. When Amazon shares collapsed by 94%, CEO Jeff Bezos pointed out that internal metrics were still improving. Standard Chartered says the same is true for Ethereum right now — the price is falling while the network is doing more than ever.
Ethereum processed over 200 million transactions in Q1 2026, a record for a single quarter. DeFi total value locked on the network sits between $43B and $45B, which is 53% of all DeFi liquidity globally.
On-Chain Metrics vs. Token Price
Standard Chartered’s analysts wrote that ETH has “significant scope” to “catch up to internal metrics.” Stablecoins alone account for 33% of Ethereum transactions year-to-date, and the bank expects that figure to grow.
The Ethereum Foundation has also announced plans for an “economic zone” set to launch this summer. The feature is designed to allow digital assets to move more freely across networks built on top of Ethereum.
More than 36 million ETH — roughly 30% of total supply — is currently locked in staking contracts. That removes a large portion of tokens from the tradeable market. Combined with the fee-burning mechanism introduced by EIP-1559, the available supply of ETH has been shrinking while network usage grows.
The $40,000 Target Explained
The bank’s $40,000 end-of-decade target is based on the ETH/BTC price ratio returning to 0.08. That ratio was last seen during the 2021 crypto market peak. It would require Bitcoin to be trading at $500,000.
The nearer-term target of $4,000 by the end of 2026 would represent roughly a 2x move from current levels.
Standard Chartered also pointed to tokenized real-world assets as a key driver. The sector is projected to reach $4–5 trillion by 2030. If those assets settle on Ethereum, demand for ETH as gas and collateral would increase.
The bank wrote: “If RWAs multiply by 50x over the next few years as we expect, the importance of this sector to Ethereum is set to increase dramatically.”
Prediction market platform Myriad currently gives a 65% chance that ETH falls to $1,500 before reaching $3,000, reflecting continued short-term bearish sentiment among its users.
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