Standard Chartered says Ethereum’s network activity remains close to record levels even as Ether (ETH) trades far below last year’s highs, arguing that the gap between usage and price could eventually narrow.

Ethereum’s internal metrics, including transaction counts and total value locked in ETH terms, remain close to record levels, according to a Thursday report from Standard Chartered’s digital assets research team. ETH has fallen about 57% from its August 2025 peak of above $4,800 to under $2,000 at the time of writing, according to CoinGecko data.

StanChart’s global head of digital assets research, Geoff Kendrick, reaffirmed price targets of $4,000 by end-2026 and $40,000 by 2030, implying a return of the ETH/BTC ratio to its 2021 highs around 0.08. The call comes as investors debate whether Ethereum’s growing dominance in stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets will eventually translate into stronger returns for ETH itself, despite persistent ETF outflows and weak price performance.

Kendrick likened the current disconnect to Amazon during the dot-com bust, arguing that “everything inside the company was going the right way” even as the stock price slumped.

Max Shannon, senior research associate Europe at Bitwise, agreed with the Amazon analogy, telling Cointelegraph it relates to Ethereum’s “lack of narrative” and “lack of value accrual from cheap layer-1 and layer-2 transactions.” He said value accrual can improve as onchain assets and their velocity grow and as users pay higher gas fees for premium services such as zero-knowledge transactions, pre-confirmations, maximal extractable value, and large institutional trades.

Ethereum as the main settlement layer for stablecoins and RWAs

The report highlights Ethereum’s role as the primary settlement layer for stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets, projecting that stablecoin market capitalization will grow sixfold to about $2 trillion by 2028 and tokenized non-stablecoin assets will expand 50-fold to a similar size. Ethereum currently hosts roughly half to two-thirds of each market, according to the report.

Transactions on Ethereum reached an all-time high of more than 3.6 million on April 28 and have since dropped to around 2.2 million, according to Etherscan. Total value locked in decentralized finance has dropped from around $97 billion in August to $41.65 billion on May 27, according to DeFiLlama.

Justin d’Anethan, head of research at Arctic Digital, a crypto private markets advisory firm, told Cointelegraph that it is “heartwarming to see a traditional bank stick to their thesis,” despite overall disappointing market sentiment. He noted that in crypto, price is “often its own narrative,” and fundamental value is “an afterthought.”

Mixed signals across the market

Other market signals are more nuanced. Bitmine Immersion Technologies, which describes itself as a large public buyer of ETH, doubled down on expectations of a supercycle this week, citing Wall Street’s interest in tokenization and artificial intelligence-powered agents.

That optimism contrasts with a wave of departures from the Ethereum Foundation and public skepticism from some long-time Ethereum commentators over how much of the network’s activity translates into value for ETH holders. ETF outflows have now extended to an 11th consecutive day, according to data from Farside Investors.

Source: StanChart Holds $4,000 ETH Target as Price Lags Network Fundamentals