#InstitutionalCapitalRotatesFromBTCToHYPEAndXRP

Standard Chartered Says Ethereum Could Rise 20 Times After ETH Experiences Brutal Crash Below US$2,000

Standard Chartered reaffirms its target for Ethereum
ETHUSD
at US$40,000 by the end of 2030, where the bank maintains this projection even though ETH fell below US$2,000 for the first time since late March.

Head of Global Digital Asset Research, Geoff Kendrick, compared Ethereum's decline to Amazon during the dot-com crisis in 2001. He stated that Ethereum's internal network metrics continue to improve despite the token's price moving separately.

Bezos Analogy and Long-Term Projections

Kendrick reiterated the ETH price target of US$4,000 by the end of 2026 and US$40,000 by the end of 2030. He shared this projection in a research note distributed to clients.

Transaction volume and total value locked (TVL) are approaching all-time highs in ETH units, according to the note. This contrasts with ETH below US$2,000 currently and a 57% decline from the August 2025 record of US$4,946.

“I see ETH's performance very similar to how Jeff Bezos described Amazon's stock price when the 2001 tech bubble burst,” Kendrick wrote.

Standard Chartered executives link this difference to Jeff Bezos's 2018 speech about Amazon's stock decline in 2001.

Stocks are not the company. And the company is not the stock. So, when I saw the stock price fall from US$113 to US$6, I also saw all our internal business metrics… all aspects of the business actually improving,” Bezos said at the time.

He also mentioned that Amazon's stock has increased about 1,000 times since 2001 after stock split adjustments.

Geoff Kendrick also projects that the market capitalization of stablecoins will increase sixfold by the end of 2028.

Real-world assets tokenized could increase 50 times over the same period, with Ethereum hosting 50% to 65% of both segments.

Retail Buying, Institutions Selling, Short Positions Rising

Although ETH's price fell below US$2,000, the ETH/BTC ratio also dropped to a five-year low of around 0.027.

Data from Santiment shows a surge in “buy the dip” orders from retail investors after ETH broke through US$2,000. Meanwhile, institutional fund flows moved in the opposite direction.

“Retail investors are increasingly ‘buying the dip’ on ETH after the price broke this key psychological support level. Usually, this indicates the price still has potential to fall further, because the crowd (which often mispredicts the market) is too optimistic,” Santiment analysts predicted in their analysis.

In the prediction market Polymarket, there is now a 54% chance that ETH will close below US$1,500 this year. This bet has been supported by a trading volume of US$6.4 million.

However, short positions appear to be very crowded. The increase in open interest and positive funding rates present around US$2 billion in potential short squeeze.

This risk could escalate if ETH again breaks through the US$2,000 level.

Whether Kendrick's Amazon analogy proves true will heavily depend on Ethereum's ability to transform network usage into value absorption at the token level.

Long-term bulls like Bankless co-founder David Hoffman now believe more value flows into applications and layer-2 solutions, rather than ETH itself.