Standard Chartered: $2.5M Bitcoin sale signals Ethereum gain

A corporate Bitcoin sale earlier this week has sparked a major financial institution’s prediction of a prolonged market shift that could see Ethereum outperform its larger peer. Geoffrey Kendrick, head of digital asset research at Standard Chartered, stated in a note to clients that Strategy’s sale of approximately $2.5 million worth of Bitcoin marked a structural turning point favoring Ethereum.

Following the public disclosure of the sale, Ethereum posted one of its largest single-day outperformance moves against Bitcoin observed since the start of 2024, an event that has occurred just 23 times in that period. On the day of the announcement, Bitcoin’s price dropped nearly 5%, falling to around $68,000, while Ethereum declined less than 2%, holding above $1,900.

Kendrick projects the ETH/BTC price ratio will climb from its current level of approximately 0.028 to 0.04 by year’s end. This implies Ethereum would need to outperform Bitcoin by more than 40% from current levels. Under this scenario, assuming a flat Bitcoin price near $67,300, Ethereum would rise to roughly $2,700. Kendrick has a separate year-end price target of $4,000 for Ethereum and a long-term projection of...