Bank’s bullish 2030 price target clashes with negative fund flows and dominant Bitcoin correlation
Standard Chartered’s digital assets research team published a report on May 28 reaffirming bullish Ether price targets even as ETH trades under $2,000, down 57% from its August 2025 peak above $4,800. The bank projects ETH will reach $4,000 by end of 2026 and $40,000 by 2030, citing strong on-chain network fundamentals despite a widening gap between price performance and blockchain activity.
Geoff Kendrick, global head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered, compared Ethereum’s current state to Amazon during the dot-com bust, noting that “everything inside the company was going the right way.” The bank argues that on-chain metrics remain near record levels, with Ethereum processing 2.2 million transactions as of May 27, down from an all-time high of 3.6 million reached on April 28, 2025.
The thesis faces immediate headwinds. US spot ETH exchange-traded funds posted their 11th consecutive day of net withdrawals on May 27, with $67.1 million flowing out that day alone. Decentralized finance total value locked has collapsed to $41.65 billion as of May 27, from $97 billion in August 2025.
Max Shannon, senior research associate Europe at Bitwise, identified a structural problem: “lack of narrative” and “lack of value accrual from cheap layer-1 and later-2 transactions.” Shannon’s Bitwise Factor Model shows approximately 80% of ETH price variation can be explained by Bitcoin price movement, suggesting that “macro, equities and fundamental drivers such as active addresses have all taken a back seat.”
Standard Chartered projects the stablecoin market will grow sixfold to $2 trillion by 2028, with tokenized non-stablecoin assets expanding 50-fold to reach similar size. Ethereum currently hosts roughly half to two-thirds of stablecoin and tokenized real-world asset markets, anchoring the bank’s long-term thesis.
Justin d’Anethan, head of research at Arctic Digital, expressed cautious approval of Standard Chartered’s stance. “It’s heartwarming to see a traditional bank stick to their thesis,” he said, while noting that price often follows “its own narrative” and fundamental value remains “an afterthought.”
Bitmine Immersion Technologies, which owns 5,300,000 ETH, doubled down on supercycle expectations this week, citing Wall Street interest in tokenization and AI-powered agents. The move contrasts with a wave of Ethereum Foundation departures and public skepticism from long-time commentators about how much network growth accrues to ETH itself.
Standard Chartered’s $40,000 2030 target would require ETH to recover to the 0.08 ETH/BTC ratio last seen in 2021 highs. Whether on-chain fundamentals can close a 57% gap in a market where Bitcoin correlation dominates price discovery remains the central question for the bullish thesis.
