Standard Chartered’s head of digital-assets research, Geoffrey Kendrick, says Ethereum is poised for a major run — and that institutional adoption could be the catalyst. In a Milk Road interview with John Gillen, Kendrick argued that Ethereum could reach $40,000 by 2030 and deliver stronger percentage gains than Bitcoin as banks, asset managers and other institutions build on-chain infrastructure.
Why Kendrick favors Ethereum
Kendrick’s bullishness isn’t about narrative momentum. It’s about where traditional finance feels safest starting on-chain. He pointed to how institutions are approaching rollouts — citing BlackRock’s staged strategy as a model — and argued that firms will likely launch on Ethereum mainnet first, then expand to layer-2s and other chains. “It’ll be very safe to say I’m going to build on Ethereum layer one… because it’s never gone down,” he said, adding that much of the initial activity will happen on Ethereum layer 1.
Key valuation lens: fees vs. market cap
Kendrick says protocol and application fees relative to market cap is a useful way to think about ETH valuation: more real activity on Ethereum should translate into a higher token price. He expects ETH to outperform “for the foreseeable” and suggested the ETH/BTC ratio — around 0.03 by his measure today — could climb to 0.04 this year.
Big-picture price calls
Kendrick gave concrete long-term targets: $500,000 Bitcoin and $40,000 Ethereum by 2030. His point is that Ethereum can materially outperform Bitcoin in percentage terms even while Bitcoin remains the larger asset by market value.
The tokenization engine
At the heart of Kendrick’s thesis is tokenization. He projects stablecoins could grow from roughly $300 billion today to about $2 trillion in the coming years. That expansion, he argues, will create strong demand for tokenized money market funds — because corporate treasurers and other institutions will want to keep idle liquidity on-chain alongside stablecoins for speed and efficiency.
Some headline forecasts Kendrick shared:
- Tokenized money market funds: from ~$10 billion now to $750 billion by the end of 2028 (driven by even a partial shift of transactions into stablecoins).
- Other tokenized assets (e.g., tokenized equities and credit): from ~$40 billion today to $2 trillion by the end of 2028 — a roughly 50x increase in three years.
A bridge to DeFi
Kendrick also sees a path for traditional finance to meet DeFi if regulatory clarity improves. He expects consumer-facing apps to use blockchain rails behind the scenes to route capital into protocols like Aave, Morpho or Compound, delivering broader financial inclusion without users needing to know the plumbing. For Kendrick, the first wave of institutional liquidity will flow where compliance teams are comfortable — which today still points to Ethereum.
Context and current price
Kendrick first outlined this view in a January report titled “Ethereum outperformance expected” and says while ETH’s price has lagged since then, the structural setup remains intact. At press time, ETH traded at $2,059.
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