Ethereum (ETH) has followed Bitcoin (BTC) and much of the broader crypto market lower over the past 48 hours, falling below the key $2,000 support level and raising concerns among some investors that an extended bear phase could be underway.
Even with the recent decline, Standard Chartered’s Digital Assets Research Head Geoff Kendrick says the bank is not backing away from its bullish long-term outlook for Ethereum.
Ethereum price will catch up
In one remark On Thursday, Kendrick reaffirmed to investors Standard Chartered’s core projection for Ethereum’s performance over the next four years, including the end-2030 target of $40,000 for ETH.
He linked the current weakness to something that investors may ultimately look back on as a confusing and even misleading signal. Rather than viewing the price drop as evidence that the network is weakening, Kendrick argued that Ethereum’s usage statistics continue to improve even if the token’s market value loses ground.
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To illustrate the disconnect between price action and underlying progress, Kendrick drew a comparison to Amazon during the 2001 dot-com bust. His argument echoes a line often attributed to Jeff Bezos: that while a company’s stock can move in the wrong direction, “everything within the company” can still move in the right direction.
Kendrick specifically said that Ethereum will “overtake” those who improve its internal metrics and suggested that investors are actually eyeing a lag between operating strength and market prices.
ETH upside signals
Standard Chartered’s vision relies heavily on measurable indicators that Kendrick believes support Ethereum’s position in key parts of the world. cryptoeconomics.
One of the bank’s central points is Ethereum’s role in stablecoins. Kendrick noted that 54% of all stablecoins are currently issued on the network. He also said that stablecoins will account for about a third of all Ethereum transactions in 2026 to date.
Based on that momentum, Standard Chartered expects that the market capitalization of stablecoins could increase sixfold from current levels by the end of 2028.
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A second important pillar of the bullish case is Ethereum’s position in tokenized real-world assets (RWAs). Kendrick said Ethereum hosts about 62% of RWAs and about 68% of active on-chain loans.
He predicted that the non-stablecoin RWA sector could grow about 50 times to reach $2 trillion by the end of 2028. For Standard Chartered, tokenized RWAs are likely to expand in a way that gives Ethereum a significant share of activity.
Kendrick’s projections suggest that Ethereum could still capture roughly half to two-thirds of both the tokenized assets and related growth category, with Ethereum hosting an estimated 50% to 65% of these segments.
Kendrick’s analysis holds the prediction unchanged: ETH at $4,000 by the end of 2026 and then $40,000 by the end of 2030. In the same reaffirmation, Standard Chartered sets out an extended trajectory for the intervening years, projecting $10,000 by the end of 2027, $18,000 by the end of 2028 and finally $40,000 by the end of 2030.
At the time of writing, ETH was trading at $1,991, following a 5% pullback in the weekly time frame. This means the altcoin is now trading 59% below its all-time high of $4,964 set last year.
Featured image created with OpenArt; chart from TradingView.com