Standard Chartered Bank predicts: ETH is about to experience significant growth and is expected to surge fivefold within three years

On Wednesday, British multinational bank Standard Chartered released a forecast that delighted Crypto supporters, predicting that ETH would reach $8,000 by the end of 2026.

According to a new report published by Standard Chartered Bank, the price of ETH could soar to five times its current price within the next three years.

In a report, Standard Chartered predicted that the main reason for ETH’s price increase is the asset’s dominance in the smart contract space, as well as the Ethereum network’s growing use in gaming and tokenization.

Geoff Kendrick, a top foreign exchange analyst at Standard Chartered Bank, wrote, “We believe Ethereum’s established dominance in smart contract platforms, as well as emerging uses in gaming and tokenization, have the potential to push ETH higher by the end of 2026. to $8,000 level (equivalent to 5 times current price)

It is worth noting that Ethereum’s current main use cases are non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized finance (DeFi). But Kendrick believes that practical applications in areas such as games and tokenization should bring "huge demand" for ETH

Standard Chartered says Ethereum Layer 2 is also likely to thrive due to upcoming technical improvements to Ethereum, such as Proto-Danksharding, which will lower transaction fees on the network. In turn, these improvements should help solidify Ethereum’s dominance in the smart contract space, boosting its price-to-earnings ratio (if not profitability) over the next few years.

Additionally, Kendrick believes that Crypto assets, especially ETH, should benefit from the upcoming BTC halving event in April 2024.

He explained: “Subsequently, possible regulatory policies and spot ETFs in the United States should be as positive for ETH as BTC. We expect this to happen by the end of 2024, after the US election. This will allow ETH to reach $4,000 by the end of next year. "

Looking further into the future, Kendrick believes that $8,000 is just an initial milestone towards the bank’s “long-term structural valuation” target for ETH ($26,000-35,000).