Ether’s (ETH) structural decline is expected to continue, the Investment Bank Standard Chartered (Stan) said in a research report Monday that cuts its 2025-year-old award for the world’s second largest cryptocurrency.

Standard Chartered said it now sees ether for $ 4,000 at the end of the year, down from $ 10,000 earlier. Ether traded about $ 1,903 upon publication time.

“Ether is on a crossroads,” the report said, and although it “still dominates on several measurements,” this dominance has fallen for some time.

LAG 2 BLOCKCHAINS was intended to improve scalability at Ethereum Blockchain, but standard chartering estimates that Coinbase’s (Coin) base has reduced Ether’s market capital by $ 50 billion, and said it expects this trend to continue.

Market forces could ultimately stop this structural decline, “especially if tokenized assets in the real world were to grow significantly,” as “ETH’s security dominance means it should maintain its 80% share of this market,” Geoff Kendrick wrote, head of digital activation at Standard Chartered.

Still “only a proactive change in commercial direction from the Ethereum Foundation – such as taxation of LAG 2S – could achieve it now,” as the bank said was unlikely.

Standard Chartered said its expecting an ETH/BTC ratio will fall to 0.015 at the end of the year 2027, the lowest level since 2017.

The bank still sees a recovery in the Ether Prize from the current level around $ 1,900 as a rally in Bitcoin (BTC) is expected to lift all digital assets, but cryptocurrency’s underprestand continues.

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