Standard Chartered Report Structurally Values Ethereum at ‘$26K to $35K’ – The British multinational banking and financial services giant Standard Chartered has published a report on the two leading cryptocurrencies. In fact, the report is called the “Ethereum Investor Guide” and was written by Geoff Kendrick, Christopher Graham, and Melissa Chan. The report goes into various factors including “structural considerations” like what the “economic case is for Ethereum.”
The Standard Chartered research report notes that “ETH and BTC share many characteristics,” but the Ethereum blockchain has things like smart contracts, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), decentralized finance (defi), non-fungible token (NFT) assets, and initial coin offerings (ICOs). Despite the myriad of applicable use cases Ethereum offers, the bank does say there could be a greater risk than it would be with bitcoin (BTC).
“While potential returns may be greater for ETH than for BTC, risks are also higher,” the three Standard Chartered researchers said.
Standard Chartered: Proof-of-Stake Shift Has ‘Obvious Environmental Advantages’
In addition to the NFTs, DAOs, defi, ICOs, and other applications, Standard Chartered’s report highlighted the upcoming Ethereum 2.0 transition. “The shift has obvious environmental advantages,” Standard Chartered’s researchers stressed. “As it removes the need for excessive computer power to be used in ‘mining.’ The switch from [proof-of-work (PoW)] to [proof-of-stake (PoS)] is expected to be gradually phased in during H1 2022,” Kendrick, Graham, and Chan said.
Standard Chartered also discussed subjects like “sharding,” “from EVM to eWASM,” and the overall supply of ether. It also notes that scaling Ethereum and the ETH 2.0 rollout is a difficult task. “ETH 2.0 is complex,” the writers insist. “[And] a comprehensive upgrade to an already complex platform. The complexity is compounded by the fact that both ETH 1.0 and ETH 2.0 are running in parallel for a protracted period,” the researchers state.
The Standard Chartered report also takes into consideration the “regulatory landscape,” and “competitive landscape.” It mentions blockchains that are competing with Ethereum in the world of defi, NFTs, and decentralized applications (dapps). “Separate ecosystems already exist and may continue to challenge Ethereum in niche areas,” the report emphasizes. Moreover, “regulatory concerns related to Ethereum will be very different to those than Bitcoin,” the bank’s report concludes.
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