TheBlock
Standard Chartered's Global Head of Digital Assets Research Geoffrey Kendrick called Monday a potential inflection point for the ETH/BTC ratio, arguing that Strategy's sale of 32 bitcoin — a tiny fraction of its 843,706 BTC holdings — triggered one of the largest ETH-BTC topside moves on a bitcoin down day since the start of 2024, with only 23 larger such moves recorded in that period.
Why it matters
Kendrick's call isn't just about one day's price action. He draws a direct parallel to Amazon during the 2001 dot-com bust: Ethereum's internal metrics keep improving even as ETH has lagged BTC in price. He maintains long-term ETH price targets of $4,000 by end-2026 and $40,000 by end-2030, anchored to Ethereum's expanding role in stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, and DeFi activity. Crucially, he says his ETH outperformance view holds even if Strategy turns around and buys a large multiple of the 32 BTC it just sold. He now targets an ETH/BTC ratio of 0.040 by year-end, up from roughly 0.028 today.
Market impact
Beyond the ratio trade, Kendrick flags a structural advantage for Ethereum treasury companies: ETH staking currently yields around 3%, meaning these firms have "zero need" to ever sell holdings to fund operations — a luxury bitcoin treasury firms like Strategy don't have. He expects Ethereum DAT mNAVs, which have recently slipped below Strategy's, to reclaim higher multiples. At time of writing, BTC trades near $68,790 (down 4.25% in 24 hours) while ETH sits around $1,975 (down just 0.25%), a divergence that already illustrates the thesis in real time.
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