"Fulamak is also high, but I don't know if I can trust this Standard Chartered prediction."
Geoffrey Kendrick, a researcher at Standard Chartered Bank recently said that the second largest cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH) will rise by 500% from its current price by 2026.
This is because the steady dominance of ETH in smart contract platforms including emerging uses in gaming and tokenization is able to push the price of ETH past $8,000, Kendrick commented in more detail.
However, the momentum of the increase will not stop there as Kendrick believes that the $8,000 range is only an initial step for ETH towards the level of $26,000 to $35,000, which is the price set by Standard Chartered Bank in September 2021.
It is well known that ETH will soon have several important upgrades, among which is "protodank-sharding" that will further strengthen the dominance of the digital asset in the smart contract space.
There is no denying that JP Morgan analysts have been disappointed with the performance of the ETH network since the April 2023 Shanghai upgrade, but the new upgrade coming later this year may increase ETH transaction throughput.
Added to this is the halving of Bitcoin (BTC) in April 2024 which is expected to further boost the price of ETH, said Standard Chartered Bank, adding that the spot ETF approval is also one of the drivers.
Such factors could cause ETH to break through $4,000 by the end of 2024, but currently its price is still down 0.58% at $1,559 in the last 24 hours with a market capitalization of $187 billion.
