Ether at the Bottom: Why Standard Chartered Believes Ethereum Can Return to Its 2021 Glory

Fifty-seven percent. That’s how much Ethereum has fallen from its August 2025 peak. Today, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency trades at around $2,100, and looking at the chart, it’s hard to imagine that it once climbed to heights that seemed unreachable. Over the same period, the ETH/BTC ratio has dropped by 37%. Bears are celebrating, bulls are licking their wounds, and retail investors are asking the same question in panic: Is this the end for Ethereum?

Jeff Kendrick of Standard Chartered answers that question with a confidence that may seem provocative. No, it’s not the end. It’s a temporary disconnect between fundamentals and price. And if history teaches us anything, it’s that such gaps eventually close. The only question is when—and how high Ether can rise when it does.

The Dot-Com Parallel: What Ethereum Can Learn from Amazon

Standard Chartered draws a comparison that is both encouraging and sobering.

The year is 2001. The dot-com bubble bursts. Technology stocks plunge. Amazon—now worth trillions of dollars—loses 90% of its market value. Yet inside the company, something important is happening that stock charts fail to capture. Business processes are improving. The customer base is growing. Infrastructure is becoming more reliable.

At the time, Jeff Bezos made a statement that would later become famous: “While the stock price was moving in the wrong direction, everything inside the company was moving in the right direction.”

Kendrick believes the same logic applies to ETH today.

On the surface, everything looks terrible. The price chart resembles a falling knife. Sentiment across the crypto market is bleak. Bitcoin ETFs are seeing outflows, macroeconomic conditions are weighing on risk assets, and geopolitical uncertainty is adding another layer of fear.

Yet beneath the surface, activity on the Ethereum blockchain remains strong. Transaction volumes are hovering near historic highs. Total value locked, measured in ETH, remains resilient. People are using the network. Developers are writing code. Protocols continue to operate.

The Amazon comparison is not merely a historical anecdote. It serves as a reminder that an asset’s price and its fundamental value can diverge for years. Eventually, however, they tend to converge. It took several years for Amazon’s stock price to catch up with its internal metrics—and then it surpassed them. If Kendrick is right, Ethereum could follow a similar path.

$4,000 by the End of 2026: Realistic or Fantasy?

Standard Chartered has reaffirmed its price targets, and the numbers are striking.

The bank forecasts ETH at $4,000 by the end of 2026—nearly double its current price. Beyond that, it projects $40,000 by the end of 2030. That’s not a doubling; it’s a twentyfold increase.

Where do these figures come from?

The forecast is based on the assumption that the ETH/BTC ratio will eventually return to its 2021 highs. Back then, the ratio reached roughly 0.08, meaning one ETH was worth 8% of a Bitcoin. Today, the ratio is significantly lower.

If Bitcoin continues its long-term upward trajectory and Ethereum regains its former relative strength, then a $40,000 ETH valuation becomes less a matter of fantasy and more a matter of mathematics.

Critics will point out that the ETH/BTC ratio has been declining since 2021 and that little currently suggests a reversal. Optimists counter that the foundations for future growth are often laid when sentiment appears darkest.

Standard Chartered clearly belongs to the second camp. The bank sees something the market either cannot see—or is temporarily choosing to ignore.

Stablecoins and Tokenized Assets: The Two Pillars of Ethereum’s Future

Standard Chartered’s outlook is not based solely on historical comparisons. It rests on a concrete fundamental thesis centered around two sectors where Ethereum remains dominant and where the bank expects explosive growth.

Stablecoins

The first sector is stablecoins—digital dollars, euros, and yen that are pegged to fiat currencies and operate on blockchain networks.

Today, the stablecoin market is worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Standard Chartered expects that figure to grow sixfold by the end of 2028. If that forecast proves correct, trillions of dollars could eventually circulate in digital form.

Tokenized Real-World Assets

The second sector is tokenized real-world assets that are not stablecoins. This includes bonds, equities, real estate, and commodities represented as blockchain-based tokens.

Here, Standard Chartered is even more optimistic, projecting a fiftyfold expansion over the same period.

Ethereum currently controls between 50% and 65% of both markets. Together, these sectors account for more than half of the network’s total value locked.

If these markets expand sixfold and fiftyfold respectively, demand for Ethereum’s network—and consequently for ETH as the fuel that powers transactions—would rise accordingly. This would not be speculative demand driven by hope. It would be utility-driven demand rooted in real-world blockchain usage.

Why the Market Isn’t Seeing It

If the fundamentals are so strong, why is the price falling?

That question continues to frustrate ETH holders, and the answer is multifaceted.

1. The Macroeconomic Environment

High interest rates in the United States and other developed economies are draining liquidity from risk assets. Investors can earn attractive yields in bonds without exposing themselves to the volatility of cryptocurrencies.

2. Competition

Solana, Cardano, Avalanche, and other blockchain networks continue to take market share from Ethereum. They are often faster, cheaper, and in some cases more developer-friendly.

Ethereum is responding through upgrades and technological improvements, but the process takes time.

3. Market Sentiment

Crypto markets are cyclical. Euphoria is always followed by despair.

We are currently in the despair phase, where positive developments are ignored while negative news is amplified. This is normal. It happened to Bitcoin in 2014, 2018, and 2022. It happened to Amazon in 2001. And it may be happening to Ethereum today.

Opportunity or Trap?

If Standard Chartered is correct, current prices represent not a verdict, but an opportunity.

The gap between Ethereum’s fundamentals and its market price cannot remain open forever. Sooner or later, price tends to catch up with underlying metrics.

When that happens, those who accumulated near the bottom could be rewarded. According to the bank’s forecast, $4,000 by the end of 2026 may be only the beginning. A target of $40,000 by 2030 would make today’s levels look more like an entry point than an exit point.

Yet, as with any long-term forecast in the cryptocurrency world, this is not a guarantee—it is a vision. A vision that not everyone shares. But one that, as history occasionally reminds us, can sometimes become reality.