Standard Chartered’s Bold Call: Ethereum to $25,000 by 2026—Here’s Why

Wall Street's crypto skeptics just got a wake-up call. Standard Chartered—yes, the 160-year-old banking giant—is doubling down on Ethereum with a $25,000 price target by late 2026. That’s a 10x moonshot from current levels.

Why the surge? Institutional adoption’s hitting escape velocity. BlackRock’s ETH ETF approval last year opened the floodgates, and now pension funds are quietly accumulating—because nothing screams ‘hedge against inflation’ like an asset that swings 20% before breakfast.

The kicker? Ethereum’s tech stack is eating finance. Tokenized real estate, decentralized AWS competitors, even Starbucks loyalty points on-chain—every corporate ‘web3’ experiment runs on ETH. Meanwhile, JPMorgan’s still charging $35 wire fees.

Risks? Sure. Regulators could kneecap staking rewards, and Solana’s lurking as the ‘faster, cheaper’ alternative. But with Ethereum’s upgrade roadmap delivering actual scalability (finally), the smart money’s betting ETH becomes the TCP/IP of value—whether traditional finance likes it or not.

One hedge fund MD quipped: ‘We’re either early or very wrong. Either way, it’s more fun than watching our bond portfolios decay.’