Ether's recent price weakness does not reflect Ethereum's improving internal metrics, according to Standard Chartered Bank, which compares ETH's current setup to Amazon during the 2001 dot-com bubble burst.

"I view ETH's performance very much as Jeff Bezos described AMZN share price during the 2001 tech bubble burst. This quote, from a 2018 speech, encapsulates the point: 'The stock is not the company. And the company is not the stock. And so, as I watched the stock fall from $113 to $6, I was also watching all of our internal business metrics... every single thing about the business was getting better. And so, while the stock price was going the wrong way, everything inside the company was going the right way,'" Standard Chartered Bank's Global Head of Digital Assets Research Geoffrey Kendrick said in an email while sharing a new report on Ethereum Thursday.

"I also note AMZN share price (once adjusted for stock splits) has multiplied 1000x since the 2001 lows. ETH will catch up to the internal metrics, it is just a matter of time," Kendrick added.

'Improving internal metrics'

Ethereum's internal metrics, such as transaction numbers and total value locked or TVL measured in ETH terms, both remain near all-time highs, Kendrick said. However, the ether price has fallen around 57% from its August 2025 high to roughly $2,000, while the ETH-bitcoin ratio has declined around 37% over the same period, he added.

Stronger metrics should eventually drive stronger ETH prices, according to Kendrick, who maintained his bullish long-term ETH forecasts, reiterating price targets of $4,000 by the end of 2026 and $40,000 by the end of 2030. He also expects the ETH-BTC ratio to recover toward the 2021 highs around 0.08 by the end of the decade.

Stablecoins, RWAs and more factors

A major part of Kendrick's bullish thesis is Ethereum's dominance in stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets, or RWAs.

Kendrick reiterated his forecast that the stablecoin market cap could rise sixfold to around $2 trillion by the end of 2028 from about $321 billion currently. He noted that 54% of all stablecoins are currently on Ethereum and that stablecoins account for around one-third of all Ethereum transactions in 2026 year-to-date, as well as 60% of gross TVL on the network.

Expected growth in the stablecoin market cap would likely continue pushing more activity into the Ethereum ecosystem and help drive ETH prices higher, according to Kendrick.

As for tokenized non-stablecoin RWAs, Kendrick reiterated that the sector could grow 50 times to $2 trillion by the end of 2028. Ethereum currently dominates that sector as well, hosting around 62% of RWAs and 68% of active onchain loans, he noted.

"If RWAs multiply by 50x over the next few years as we expect, the importance of this sector to Ethereum is set to increase dramatically. As a result, we would expect transaction numbers and total value locked to continue to print all-time highs going forward, pushing ETH prices higher," Kendrick said.

He also highlighted the upcoming launch of the Ethereum Economic Zone, or EEZ, which is designed to allow assets to move more freely across the Ethereum ecosystem and improve composability between protocols. Kendrick said the system could reduce reliance on blockchain bridges, which have historically been vulnerable to hacks, while improving usability across Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible chains.

On the regulatory side, Kendrick also pointed to progress aroundthe Clarity Act or crypto market structure bill in the U.S., noting that clearer digital asset regulations could further support decentralized finance growth and Ethereum activity levels.