The price of ether [ETH] has the potential to reach $8,000 by the end of 2026 versus its current level just below $1,,600, writes Geoff Kendrick, Head of FX Research, West, and Digital Assets Research at Standard Chartered Bank.

While Ethereum's dominant uses currently are non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized finance (DeFi), said Kendrick, an evolution towards gaming and tokenization should add "significant demand."

"Importantly, this should provide ‘proof of concept’ examples in which real-world industries come on-chain to exploit the benefits of Ethereum over their existing setups," he added. "We expect significant developments on these fronts by 2025-26."

In the shorter term, said Kendrick, the bitcoin [BTC] halving in April 2024 "should help lift all boats," and he sees ether hitting $4,000 by the end of next year.

Looking even longer into the future, Kendrick sees the $8,000 level as "a stepping stone" to the bank's "structural" valuation estimate of $26,000-$35,000.

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Stephen Alpher

Stephen is CoinDesk's managing editor for Markets. He previously served as managing editor at Seeking Alpha. A native of suburban Washington, D.C., Stephen went to the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, majoring in finance. He holds BTC above CoinDesk’s disclosure threshold of $1,000.