Standard Chartered, British multinational banking and financial services company, in a report, indicates the company’s analysts are bullish on the crypto asset, Ethereum. The bank’s analysts stated that “structurally, we ‘value’ Ethereum at $26,000-$35,000.”
A report titled “Ethereum Investor Guide,” written by Geoff Kendrick, Christopher Graham, and Melissa Chan gave an assessment on the Ethereum blockchain and what the price of Ethereum could be in the future. The report goes into various factors including “structural considerations” like what the “economic case is for Ethereum.”
The report notes that for Ethereum to get to the predicted price point, Bitcoin will have to trade towards its upper valuation which puts BTC’s price at $175,000. It states, “But for ETH to get there, BTC would need to trade at the top of our valuation range ($175,000).”
According to the report, the company compared the value of global banks against the value of credit card companies to establish Ether’s value relative to BTC. This calculation puts Ether’s value at $35,000. The company also used a “portfolio optimization approach,” to value Ether which they concluded that Ether’s market capitalization will catch up to Bitcoin’s overtime. This puts the price of Ether at $26,000.
The report noted, “A range of $26,000 – $35,000 may appear high compared to the current ETH price (just below $4,000), but we think the current price reflects both the relative complexity of ETH (versus BTC) and the uncertainty around ETH’s development. In other words, while potential returns may be greater for ETH than for BTC, risks are also higher.
“ETH and BTC share many characteristics,” but the Ethereum blockchain has things like smart contracts, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible token (NFT) assets, and initial coin offerings (ICOs).
“In addition to the NFTs, DAOs, DeFi, ICOs, and other applications, the report mentions the upcoming Ethereum 2.0 transition. It states that, “The shift has obvious environmental advantages. As it removes the need for excessive computer power to be used in ‘mining.’ The switch from [proof-of-work (PoW)] to [proof-of-stake (PoS)] is expected to be gradually phased in during H1 2022.”
The report also notes that scaling Ethereum and the ETH 2.0 rollout is a difficult task. It writes, “ETH 2.0 is complex and comprehensive upgrade to an already complex platform. The complexity is compounded by the fact that both ETH 1.0 and ETH 2.0 are running in parallel for a protracted period, as the Ethereum network must remain fully operational throughout the transition.”
According to the report, it expects ETH 2.0 to likely launch in late 2021 or in 2022.
Ether is trading $3,535, up 9% as of the time of this writing.
