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Investing.com -- Ethereum rallied 33% this year, hitting a new record high of $4,955 on Sunday, but analysts at Standard Chartered believe the token and related corporate treasuries remain undervalued.
Geoff Kendrick, head of digital assets research at the bank, highlighted that treasury companies and ETFs together have absorbed nearly 5% of all ETH in circulation since June, driving the coin to a new all-time high on August 24.
Yet he stressed that this surge is only the beginning, arguing that “ETH and the ETH treasury companies are cheap at today’s levels”.
Kendrick estimates treasury companies could eventually own 10% of Ethereum’s supply, with Bitmine alone targeting 5%. That outlook underpins his year-end price forecast of $7,500 for ETH.
He called the recent two-day sell-off “a great entry point” for investors.
Valuations of listed ETH treasury firms such as Sharplink (NASDAQ:SBET) and Bitmine (NYSE:BMNR) have fallen below those of MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR), which holds Bitcoin but does not benefit from staking yields.
“Given that the ETH treasury companies are able to capture ETH’s 3% staking yield I see no reason for the net asset value (NAV) multiples to be below MSTR’s multiple,” Kendrick wrote.
He also pointed to SBET’s pledge to repurchase shares if its NAV multiple falls below 1.0 as setting “a hard floor” for valuations.
Kendrick further argued that ETH treasury vehicles offer a structural advantage over U.S. spot ETH ETFs.
He described them as “regulatory arbitrage vehicles” that give investors access not only to ETH’s price appreciation but also to staking rewards and decentralized finance leverage, which ETFs cannot deliver under current rules
“I see the ETH treasury companies as a better asset to buy than the U.S. spot ETH ETFs,” Kendrick said.
The bank also observed that ETH has outperformed Bitcoin since treasury accumulation accelerated in June, lifting the ETH/BTC cross from 0.018 in April to 0.032.