Trend Research: The optimistic prediction for ETH in the new cycle is $10,000, capturing long-term opportunities in the ETH ecosystem.

Since TrendResearch's research report was released on April 24, 2025, ETH has risen from $1,800 to around $2,400, an increase of about 30% in one month, and the prediction before writing the report is $1,450. At that time, the main reasons for the firm bullishness include: ETH still has stable financial data, and the status of crypto as an important infrastructure has not changed; The short-term highs have a huge adjustment range (a decline of more than 60% in 4 months ) and the short position in the derivatives market is huge, and the bottom spot volume has climbed to an important support swap area, and the continuous layout of traditional finance and the gradual inflow of ETFs. At present, our prediction for ETH is that it can exceed $5,000 in the long run, and in the optimistic scenario, if BTC rises to 300,000+ in this cycle, ETH is expected to rise to $10,000, and will capture the opportunity of related targets in the ETH ecosystem for a long time.

1. Valuation forecast for ETH

An important background for the new valuation of ETH is the capture of the trend of key digital assets merging with traditional finance. We note that BTC, as the most important digital asset, has opened the door to being included as a strategic reserve asset by various states in the US after the approval of the Spot ETF, gradually becoming an expansion of dollar assets and a certain degree of strategic alternative, currently ranking 6th in global asset market value. The US BTC Spot ETF currently manages approximately $118.6 billion in assets, accounting for about 6% of Bitcoin's total market value. The trend of integration between encryption assets and traditional finance is no longer in question. CZ stated in an interview in Dubai in May that the price of Bitcoin in this market cycle could reach between $500,000 and $1 million.

ETH currently still possesses robust financial data, and its position as the most important infrastructure in encryption finance has not changed. The total TVL of Ethereum DeFi is approximately 60 billion USD, accounting for over 53% of the global DeFi market. The market capitalization of stablecoins is 124 billion USD, making up over 50% of the total market value of stablecoins worldwide. The total AUM of Ethereum ETF is 7.2 billion USD, and BlackRock's tokenized money market fund BUIDL has an investment scale of about 2.7 billion USD in the Ethereum ecosystem, accounting for 92% of its total assets.

ETH quickly fell to around $1300 after hitting three tops at $4000 in 2024, with an ATH of over $4800. Based on the following potential factors, we predict that the ETH price will reach $5000 in this cycle:

l The imminent end of QT in the US and the further start of interest rate cuts

The new SEC chairman may bring breakthroughs in the promotion of tokenization on the ETH chain and legislation related to staking.

l The management and route repair of the ETH foundation should maintain a certain level of infrastructure innovation.

l Maintain a stable growth of the on-chain financial ecosystem.

Under long-term optimistic forecasts, ETH is expected to challenge $10,000 in the new cycle, and the following conditions need to be met:

l BTC rises above 300k USD

l ETH brings brilliant infrastructure innovations beneficial to DeFi

l American institutions are pushing ETH to become an important native venue for asset tokenization.

The demonstration effect drives global asset tokenization.

2. Three ETH ecosystem projects not to be overlooked

1、UNI(Uniswap): the largest DEX protocol in the encryption market

Uniswap is the earliest and largest Dex protocol in the encryption market, with a TVL of 4.7 billion USD and a daily trading volume of over 2 billion USD, generating an annual revenue of 900 million USD. UNI is fully circulating, with about 40% locked for governance, currently having a circulating market cap of 4 billion USD and an FDV of 6.6 billion.

Currently, there is a certain decoupling between the tokenomics design of UNI and the protocol revenue. The revenue generated by the protocol is not automatically distributed to UNI token holders. UNI mainly serves as a governance token, allowing holders to control the use of the treasury through voting. Governance proposals can indirectly have a positive effect on the price of UNI, such as in 2024, when the DAO votes to repurchase 10 million UNI.

The decoupling between protocol revenue and token earnings is mainly due to the SEC's risk considerations regarding the qualitative regulation of securities. Currently, as the regulatory environment for encryption in the United States gradually becomes more lenient and regulated, there may be potential upgrades to UNI's protocol distribution in the future.

Recently, the main progress of Uniswap has been in the areas of Uniswap V4 and Unichain expansion, as well as the preliminary activation of the "Fee Switch" mechanism.

2、AAVE(Aave): The largest lending protocol in the encryption market.

AAVE is the largest lending protocol in the encryption market, with a TVL of 23 billion USD, generating 450 million USD in revenue over the year, and a fully circulating token supply, currently valued at 3.3 billion USD.

Similar to UNI's situation, the protocol revenue has no direct dividend relationship with AAVE but instead influences it indirectly through governance.

Recently, Aave's main progress is in the development of Aave V4, the cross-chain expansion of the native stablecoin GHO, and the advancement of the Horizon project for exploring RWA business.

3、ENA(Ethena): the largest synthetic stablecoin protocol in the encryption market

Since 2025, Ethena's synthetic dollar USDe has become the third largest dollar-pegged asset in the encryption market, with an issuance scale second only to USDT and USDC, and USDe is also the only synthetic stablecoin among them. In terms of returns, Ethena is also a highly profitable Defi protocol, generating $315 million in revenue in a year. ENA currently has a market capitalization of $2.18 billion and an FDV of $5.6 billion.

Recently, Ethena has made comprehensive business progress: Ethena will collaborate with Securitize to launch the "Converge" blockchain network, aimed at bridging TradFi and DeFi, plans to introduce a stablecoin product iUSDe for traditional financial institutions, integrate its stablecoin sUSDe into the Telegram application, and is building an ecosystem based on its stablecoin sUSDe, including a perpetual and Spot exchange Ethereal based on its own application chain and an on-chain options and structured products protocol Derive.