American bank Citizens said ether could climb above $10,000 in the next two years, citing rising adoption, increasing institutional access and a declining supply.
The bank said it expects accelerating adoption of Ethereum to provide strong tailwinds for the blockchain’s native token ether, pointing to the network’s entrenched position as the leading smart contract platform.
Ethereum’s programmable infrastructure supports decentralized finance (DeFi), tokenization and a rapidly growing ecosystem of on-chain applications, the bank said in the Wednesday report. Its strong network effects, active developer base, and modular scaling roadmap are key differentiators that enable secure, high-throughput transactions.
With regulatory clarity improving and institutions beginning to commit capital, ether is increasingly positioned as the initial fuel and security for this expanding digital economy, the report said.
The analysts view the cryptocurrency’s fundamental value as being driven by rising demand along with a contracting liquid supply, tying the valuation closely to the scale of economic activity on the network.
The firm pointed to institutional adoption, exchange-traded fund (ETF) inflows and real-world asset tokenization (RWA) as key drivers of new net demand, while stakes, Treasury absorption and the EIP-1559 fee burn mechanism simultaneously reduce supply.
The bank estimated that by 2027, less than 50 million ether may remain truly liquid out of the roughly 120 million currently outstanding, with 35 million already staked and more expected to be locked up or burned as network activity accelerates. This dynamic reflects the company’s repurchase effect, which tightens float as consumption expands.
The analysts noted that on-chain settlement volumes are headed for exponential growth, with ether’s market value historically moving in step with the total value secured on the network.
In a limited liquidity environment, even moderate capital inflows can have an overall impact on price, Citizens said, estimating that ether could climb well above $10,000 in the base case over the next two years.
Read More: Ether Treasuries Go Mainstream: Crypto Investment Firm Bitwise
