Ethereum’s price has climbed near record highs, driven by large inflows into Ethereum ETFs and rising institutional interest. Analysts say the cryptocurrency could continue its upward momentum due to growing stablecoin adoption and DeFi activity.
Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendricks highlighted that stablecoins now account for 40% of blockchain fees, with over half of all stablecoins on the Ethereum network. The recent passage of the U.S. GENIUS Act paves the way for mainstream stablecoin use, which is expected to boost activity on Ethereum’s layer-1 blockchain.
ETH treasury companies and ETFs have purchased 3.8% of all Ethereum in circulation over just 2.5 months – a pace double that of Bitcoin buying by similar sources. Ethereum’s daily transaction count reached 1.87 million on Tuesday, with July 2025 recording roughly 50 million transactions, the highest in over a year.
Ethereum’s co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, plans to increase layer-1 throughput by 10x, allowing more high-value transactions on the main chain while smaller transfers move to layer-2 networks like Arbitrum and Base.
Standard Chartered now forecasts Ethereum to surpass its previous all-time high of $4,866 by the end of Q3 2025, reach $7,500 by the end of 2025, $12,000 by end-2026, $18,000 by end-2027, and $25,000 by end-2028 and 2029. Analysts expect Ethereum to continue outperforming Bitcoin as stablecoin and DeFi adoption grows.
