Forecasts of large financial institutions are often carefully scrutinized by investors. Indeed, when a renowned bank like Standard Chartered drastically revives its price objective for Ethereum (ETH), the news does not go unnoticed. Optimism marked at $ 10,000 for 2025, the bank lowers its estimate to $ 4,000, a division by more than two of its previous anticipation.
The pressure of Layer 2 solutions weighs on Ethereum
Standard Charterd justifies its change of course by the development of Layer 2 solutions, these infrastructures built on Ethereum which aim to improve scalability and efficiency of transactions.
Among them, base, developed by Coinbase, captures an increasing part of the volume of transactions. This success, far from being a boon for Ethereum, weakens the native demand for the ETH, the basic asset necessary for the payment of costs on the main blockchain.
In his report relayed In a message on social network X (ex Twitter) on March 17, 2025 by LWS Financial Research, the bank stresses that:
“The ETH loses its central role as the Layer 2 stands out as a viable alternative”.
Unless a specific taxation of these solutions to restore a balance (a possibility deemed improbable), Ethereum could continue to see its dominance erode.
Here are the main elements put forward by Standard Charterd to explain this revision of forecasts:
- The development of the Layer 2: These solutions offer faster and less expensive transactions, which limits the direct use of Ethereum;
- The drop in ETH demand: users are increasingly interacting with these secondary layers without the need to buy or keep so much eth;
- A lack of compensatory measures: the introduction of a taxation on these Layer 2 solutions could make it possible to rebalance the request, but Standard Charted judges this unlikely hypothesis.
A price that could still double
Despite the downward revision, Standard Charterd still believes that ETH could more than double its current value.
Listed at $ 1,911 after a decrease of 5 % over a week, Ethereum could reach $ 4,000 during this year, which would still offer significant increase potential. However, this upward trajectory is now based on factors that are less structural than before, which could cool certain investors looking for certainties.
A continuous fall since the start of the year
If the ETH/USD retains a rebound potential, the ETH/BTC pair, it collapses. Since January, the ETH has lost 36 % against the BTC, and has reached 0.023 BTC, its lowest level since 2017.
A spectacular decline, when you remember that the ETH had climbed up to 0.088 BTC in 2021, in full nft and deffi.
“Ethereum's inability to find a new upper dynamic against Bitcoin limits its appeal to institutional investors,” said the report.
In parallel, Standard Charterd retains an ultra-upper Bitcoin vision, and projects a surge at 200,000 dollars this year, and a long-term $ 500,000 objective.
This prediction strengthens the imbalance perceived between BTC and ETH, and could continue to amplify the transfer of capital to the Crypto number 1 of the market.
Ethereum is going through a pivotal period, when its attractiveness is put to the test in the face of increasing internal competition and a stronger bitcoin than ever. However, the network still has solid cartridges, in particular thanks to Ethereum 2.0, which promises better scalability and reduced costs. If the innovation follows, Ethereum could find a second breath. But without a new strong catalyst, the current pressure on its price may increase.
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