Ethereum Price Prediction: Future Trajectory for 2024 and Beyond

Ethereum Price Prediction: Future Trajectory for 2024 and BeyondEthereum's market capitalization closely follows Bitcoin, having traded neck and neck with it at major turning points over the past year. However, Ethereum has lagged behind Bitcoin in the past year, recording a 31

Ethereum Price Prediction: Future Trajectory for 2024 and Beyond

Ethereum's market capitalization closely follows Bitcoin, having traded neck and neck with it at major turning points over the past year. However, Ethereum has lagged behind Bitcoin in the past year, recording a 31.6% gain versus Bitcoin's 85.8% rise. While the potential for an Ethereum ETF lifted the crypto market, its gains were wiped out. Despite both cryptocurrencies experiencing a price plunge in late July, hopes are high for an Ethereum ETF on the back of the broad success of the Bitcoin ETF launch. Considering these and other factors, what price range can ETH holders expect in the near and medium term? What is the Ethereum price prediction for 2024?

Top Analyst Predictions

Top analysts, institutions, and fund managers have an average price expectation for Ethereum at the end of 2024 of $6,404. All eight predictors are bullish on Ethereum, expecting ETH to rally between $4,400 and $166,000. CryptoNews has the lowest target at $4,443.63 while Cathie Woods ArkInvest has the highest at $166,000.

While all experts expect price appreciation, only two predict ETH reaching six figures. VanEck predicts ETH will climb to $154,000 in a bullish scenario, while Cathie Wood expects it to reach $166,000. However, most price predictions are based on a longer time horizon, only Bernstein, QCPCapital, and Standard Chartered Bank provide a one-year timeframe. Therefore, their predictions tend to be at the lower end of the range, between $6,000 and $8,000.

Impact of Ethereum ETF

The biggest driver behind Bitcoin reaching its all-time high of $73,780 this year was the legalization effect through exchange-traded funds (ETFs). This investment vehicle opened up Bitcoins access without the risk associated with self-custody. An Ethereum ETF is now expected to have the same effect.

However, a survey conducted by Grayscale between April 30 and May 2, 2024, revealed a divergence in sentiment. While 25% of respondents believe ETF approval will increase capital flows into Ethereum, 25% believe it will not affect Ethereums investment thesis. The most significant finding in the survey was that fund launching an Ethereum ETF will have a lot of marketing work to do as 43% of respondents are unfamiliar with the concept of spot trading Ethereum ETFs.

Ethereum Price Prediction Analysis

As of August 6, ETHs price has plunged 15.5% in the past 30 days, hovering around $2,600. This is reminiscent of the crash that occurred in April 2022 at the beginning of the Feds rate hiking cycle.

This time, federal funds futures predict three rate cuts by the end of 2024, with the first one occurring in September with an 82.7% probability. This could be a tailwind or a headwind based on the severity of the need for rate cuts to stimulate the economy. A hard landing that causes a deep market recession is unlikely to help ETHs capital inflows, as diminished discretionary spending would shorten funds inflows.

Besides this, the Mt.Gox repayments are expected to bring Bitcoin sell-off pressure, which could put further pressure on ETH. Moreover, days after the ETHETF gained approval, it was clear that sell the news pressure was brewing as ETHs price plunged more than 10%.

Growth Potential of Ethereum

On the plus side, Ethereum not only sits firmly behind Bitcoin but also has higher growth potential. According to VanEcks analysis, its reliance on layer-2 networks, combined with sharding, makes it the leading candidate to absorb all traffic from multiple use-case scenarios.

On the regulatory front, efforts are underway to make ETH more decentralized. Lido, which occupies the top spot with a 29% stake in staking, has introduced the Community Staking Module (CSM) to alleviate centralization concerns, shedding the "safe" label.

Overall, analysts and experts agree that ETHs price has a long-term upward trajectory, well above its current level of around $2,600.

Potential Drivers of Ethereum Price

Ethereums profitability both weakened and strengthened after its transition from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) in September 2022. On the one hand, becoming a validator requires staking ETH, which lowers the networks potential for maintaining decentralization. Likewise, PoS networks are more susceptible to censorship of transactions as users trust is delegated to network validators. This is in stark contrast to trustless PoW networks such as the Bitcoin mainnet.

Moreover, Ethereum is a work-in-progress coding project with a complex roadmap that has the potential to bring unforeseen changes. Therefore, selling Ethereum to potential investors is more difficult as it carries higher risk. In contrast, Bitcoin is an extremely conservative digital commodity that focuses on absolute scarcity and network security, which is more appealing to investors who want to hedge against currency depreciation.

On the other hand, Ethereums PoS brought blockchain scaling to reality, enabling layer-2 networks. On average, the Ethereum network facilitates twice the daily transactions of Bitcoin. Meanwhile, Ethereums average transaction fees have steadily declined. As Ethereum 2.0s roadmap implements sharding and achieves 100,000 transactions per second (TPS) while Bitcoins TPS stands at 7, a clear picture emerges: Ethereum, hosting about 13.9% of the total crypto market cap, acts as a proxy for dozens of layer-2 networks and their respective cryptocurrencies, simplifying Ethereums appeal to blockchain investors as the primary smart contract real estate.

Ethereum is neither inflationary nor deflationary, with its network activity dictating its status. The EIP-1559 token burning mechanism typically causes inflationary periods when network activity reduces and deflationary pressure when network demand increases.

Investing in Ethereum is akin to early ownership of Visa/Mastercard stock but targeted at a global decentralized finance network. In other words, without a maximum supply cap on ETH and with the disadvantages derived from PoS, Ethereum may struggle to attract significant capital inflows that have poured into Bitcoin. However, the potential of the deep ecosystem of decentralized applications (dApps) that are hosted on the Ethereum network may offset, and even surpass, these factors.

Top Eight Ethereum Price Predictions

The following are the top eight Ethereum price predictions: All predictions were made in 2024, and the average is for informational purposes only.

• CryptoNews: $4,443.63

• Bernstein: $6,000

• Standard Chartered Bank: $6,500

• QCPCapital: $7,500

• VanEck: $154,000 (bullish)

• ARKInvest: $166,000

• Without Cathie Woods outlier, the average price prediction for Ethereum by the end of 2024 or early 2025 reaches $6,404.

Conclusion

While Ethereums short-term price action may be influenced by various factors, including the launch of an Ethereum ETF and macroeconomic conditions, the long-term growth potential of the platform remains immense. Ethereums PoS network, growing dApp ecosystem, and widespread layer-2 networks will all power its future growth. As Ethereum technology continues to evolve, its price is expected to keep climbing, providing investors with substantial returns.