CoinDesk
Standard Chartered's Geoffrey Kendrick used a Thursday note to reaffirm a long-held call that ether will hit $4,000 by year-end 2026 and $40,000 by 2030, framing the current drawdown as an Amazon-style decoupling between the Ethereum blockchain's internal metrics and its token price. Transaction counts and the value locked on the chain sit near record highs, Kendrick wrote, while ETH has bled 57% from its August peak in dollar terms and 37% against bitcoin. The pitch: ETH will catch up to the internal metrics.
Why it matters
The bullish side of the trade is a banker on a three-month-old target and a retail crowd that historically buys too early. ETH dropped under $2,000 for the first time since late March, and the moment the round number cracked, Santiment's bullish-versus-bearish social gauge on ether ripped to a month-high of 2.4-to-1 on May 27 — deep in the firm's fear-of-missing-out zone, where crowd chatter has a track record of front-running further declines. Santiment noted the crowd "usually gets calls wrong."
Kendrick's anchor is structural: Standard Chartered expects the stablecoin market to grow sixfold by end-2028 and tokenized real-world assets to balloon fiftyfold, with Ethereum carrying 50% to 65% of both. Those buckets already make up more than half the value locked on the chain, and the math gets to $4,000 on the assumption that the ETH/BTC ratio returns to its 2021 high near 0.08. It currently trades around 0.03.
Market impact
The traders putting real capital down are not waiting for the catch-up. ETH futures open interest climbed to a record 16.39 million ETH ($32.61 billion) even as price sank — the classic fingerprint of fresh shorts building into a falling tape, not dip buyers adding length. Funding on perpetuals sat flat at 0.0022%, meaning nobody is paying up to be long either, per Coinglass data. The cleanest buy, by the Santiment read, shows up when the dip-buying crowd finally stops cheering and starts bleeding.
Kendrick's Amazon analogy does the work: Jeff Bezos watched the stock crater from $113 to $6 in the 2001 wreckage while the underlying business kept improving, and the shares have since climbed roughly 1,000-fold.
Frequently asked questions
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What is Standard Chartered's ether price target?
Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank's digital assets research head, reaffirmed on Thursday a call he has held since February: ether at $4,000 by year-end 2026 and $40,000 by 2030, arguing the token will catch up to strong on-chain activity.
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Why does Kendrick compare ether to Amazon circa 2001?
Kendrick argues the Ethereum blockchain and its token have decoupled — transaction counts and the value locked in apps are near record highs while ETH has fallen 57% from its August peak in dollar terms and 37% against bitcoin. He drew the parallel to Bezos watching Amazon crater from $113 to $6 in 2001 while the…
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What does record ether futures open interest signal here?
ETH futures open interest climbed to a record 16.39 million ETH ($32.61 billion) even as price sank, with funding flat at 0.0022% — a pattern analysts read as fresh short positions building into a falling tape rather than dip buyers adding length.
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What does the Santiment crowd gauge say about the sub-$2,000 dip?
Santiment's bullish-versus-bearish social sentiment gauge on ether hit a month-high of 2.4-to-1 on May 27, deep in what the firm calls the fear-of-missing-out zone. Santiment noted the crowd "usually gets calls wrong," arguing retail dip-buying at a psychological support level tends to precede further declines.
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What assumptions get Standard Chartered to a $4,000 ether price?
Standard Chartered expects the stablecoin market to grow sixfold by end-2028 and tokenized real-world assets to balloon fiftyfold, with Ethereum carrying 50% to 65% of both. Those categories already make up more than half of the value locked on the chain, and the math hits $4,000 if the ETH/BTC ratio returns to its…
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