According to lead analyst Geoff Kendrick, Wall Street’s growing interest in Ethereum, combined with regulatory clarity on stablecoins, could fuel a sustained rally. His roadmap sets ETH at $12,000 in 2026, $18,000 in 2027, and between $20,000–25,000 by 2028–2029.
Institutional treasuries are already taking aggressive positions. BitMine has accumulated over $5 billion worth of ETH, while SharpLink holds more than $3.2 billion. Together with other players, five of the ten largest Ethereum wallets are now in the hands of treasury firms, some aiming to secure as much as five percent of total supply.
BitMine chairman Tom Lee went further, calling Ethereum “the biggest macro trade of the decade” and suggesting even Standard Chartered’s bullish forecast could prove conservative.
Despite the latest market pullback, sentiment remains decisively positive. Ethereum is viewed as one of the strongest large-cap investments in the digital asset space. Standard Chartered also expects the stablecoin market to grow eightfold by 2028 — a trend that would directly benefit Ethereum, which underpins most stablecoin transactions.
Over the past week, ETH gained more than 6% and briefly touched a new all-time high near $4,800 before easing back to $4,400, giving it a market capitalization of roughly $535 billion.
Launched in 2015 by Vitalik Buterin and co-founders, Ethereum is the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap and the leading smart contract platform, powering much of the DeFi, NFT, and tokenization ecosystem. With ETH trading only 4% below its peak, investors are watching closely to see whether Standard Chartered’s ultra-bullish scenario begins to take shape.