Author: TrendResearch
Since the entire research report was released on April 24, 2025, TrendResearch has risen from US$1,800 to around US$2,400, with an increase of about 30% in one month. The prediction before the research report was written was even more than US$1,450. As an asset target of a scale of 100 billion, it is a rare opportunity for large funds to achieve high returns in the short term. The main reasons for firmly bullish at that time include: ETH still has stable financial data, and its status as an important infrastructure for encryption has not changed; the short-term highs have been greatly adjusted (the decline of more than 60% in four months); the scale of short selling in the derivatives market is huge, and the bottom spot has risen to an important branch and resistance swap area after increasing volume, and the continuous layout of traditional finance and ETFs have gradually flowed in. At present, our forecast for ETH is that it is long-term that it can exceed US$5,000. Under optimistic circumstances, if BTC rises to 300,000+ in this cycle, ETH is expected to rise to US$10,000, and will capture the opportunities of related targets in the ETH ecosystem in the long run.
1. Valuation forecast of ETH
An important background in the new valuation of ETH is the capture of the trend of integrating key digital assets with traditional finance. We have noticed that BTC, as the most important digital asset, has begun the prelude to be included in strategic reserve assets by various US states after the adoption of spot ETFs, and has gradually become the scale expansion of US dollar assets and a certain degree of strategic substitution. It is currently ranked 6th in the global asset market value. The US BTC spot ETF currently manages about US$118.6 billion in assets, accounting for about 6% of the total market value of Bitcoin. The trend of integration between crypto assets and traditional finance is no longer questionable. In an interview with Dubai in May, CZ said that Bitcoin’s price could reach $500,000 to $1 million in this market cycle.
ETH still has solid financial data and its position as the most important infrastructure for crypto finance has not changed. Ethereum’s total DeFi TVL is approximately US$60 billion, accounting for 53%+ of the global DeFi market, with a stablecoin market value of US$124 billion, accounting for 50%+ of the global stablecoin market value. The total AUM of Ethereum ETF is US$7.2 billion, and BlackRock's tokenized money market fund BUIDL has invested approximately US$2.7 billion in the Ethereum ecosystem, accounting for 92% of its total assets.
ETH quickly fell to around $1,300 after three tops at $4,000 in 2024, with ATH at $4,800+. Based on the following potential factors, we predict that ETH price will hit $5,000 in this cycle:
l The US QT is about to end and further interest rate cuts begin
l The new SEC chairman may bring breakthroughs in the promotion of ETH on-chain tokenization and staking related bills
l ETH Foundation’s management and route restoration, maintaining a certain degree of infrastructure innovation
l Maintain a steady growth on-chain financial ecosystem
Under long-term optimistic forecasts, ETH is expected to hit US$10,000 in the new cycle, and the following conditions need to be met:
l BTC rose to over US$300,000
l ETH brings dazzling infrastructure innovation that benefits DeFi
l American institutions promote ETH to become an important native place for asset tokenization
l Demonstration effect drives global asset tokenization
2. Three ETH ecological projects that cannot be ignored
1. UNI (Uniswap): The largest DEX protocol in the crypto market
Uniswap is the earliest and largest Dex protocol in the crypto market. TVL is US$4.7 billion, with a daily transaction volume of more than US$2 billion, generating a yearly income of US$900 million. UNI is fully circulated, with about 40% of its locked positions used for governance. Its current circulation market value is US$4 billion and its FDV is 6.6 billion.
There is currently a certain decoupling between UNI's token economics design and protocol revenue. The revenue generated by the protocol will not be automatically distributed to UNI token holders. UNI mainly acts as governance tokens. The use of vaults can be controlled through voting and can indirectly have a positive effect on the UNI coin price through governance proposals. For example, in 2024, DAO voted to repurchase 10 million UNIs.
The decoupling between agreement revenue and token income is mainly due to the previous risk considerations of the SEC's qualitative supervision of securities. Currently, in the process of gradually easing and regularizing cryptocurrency regulation in the United States, UNI's protocol allocation may be upgraded in the future.
The main progress of Uniswap in recent days is in the expansion of Uniswap V4 and Unichain, the initial activation of the "Fee Switch" mechanism, etc.
2. AAVE (Aave): The largest lending agreement in the crypto market
AAVE is the largest lending agreement in the crypto market, with TVL of $23 billion, generating $450 million in revenue a year, 100% circulating tokens, and currently a market value of $3.3 billion.
Similar to UNI's situation, the agreement revenue has no direct dividend relationship with AAVE, but is indirectly affected through governance.
Aave's main progress has been in the development of Aave V4, the cross-chain expansion of native stablecoin GHO, and the promotion of the Horizon project for RWA business exploration.
3. ENA (Ethena): The largest synthetic stablecoin protocol in the crypto market
Since 2025, Ethena's synthetic dollar USD USDe has become the third largest dollar-pegged asset in the crypto market, second only to USDT and USDC, and USDe is also the only synthetic stablecoin among them. In terms of profits, Ethena is also a highly profitable Defi protocol, generating $315 million in a year. ENA is currently worth US$2.18 billion and FDV is US$5.6 billionEthena has made comprehensive business progress in recent times: Ethena and Securities will cooperate to launch the "Converge" blockchain network aimed at bridging traditional finance and DeFi, plan to launch a stablecoin product for traditional financial institutions iUSDe, integrate its stablecoin sUSDe into Telegram applications, and build an ecosystem based on its stablecoin sUSDe.
