Ethereum will become more valuable than Apple and Microsoft.

Really.

A group of the blockchain’s more prominent boosters made that argument in a paper published June 12.

They said the world’s second biggest cryptocurrency will not only hit $8,000 in the short term, but that the price will eventually crest $80,000.

At that higher price, the combined value of all Ether currently in circulation would approach $10 trillion, a figure greater than the combined present value of Apple and Microsoft, two of the world’s most valuable companies.

“Everyone has heard of Ethereum, everyone uses Ethereum,” Vivek Raman, the co-founder of Etherealize, a research firm, and one of the paper’s co-authors, told DL News.

“But I feel like we’ve left out and sort of just had on the sidelines this asset powering [the whole DeFi] ecosystem.”

The report and Raman didn’t offer any hint of what either the short-term or long-term cases were.

Still, it’s an astonishing prediction, especially in the face of other analysts’ bearishness as Ether has lagged other digital assets this year.

In March, UK bank Standard Chartered projected that Ethereum’s price will hit $4,000 by the end of 2025, down from a previous $10,000 prediction.

Ethereum’s bull case

The paper, entitled “The Bull Case for ETH,” is an attempt to change perception of Ethereum among traders who struggle to understand why they should be bullish on it.

The problem? The case for Ethereum is harder to explain than Bitcoin’s.

The world’s top cryptocurrency has a reputation as a safe haven asset thanks to its fixed supply recorded on a tamper-proof, ownerless ledger.

Countries are stockpiling Bitcoin. Traditional finance titans have launched Bitcoin exchange-traded funds that have seen breakneck growth since their January 2024 debut.

Raman and his co-authors argue that Ethereum can provide that, and more.

Not only is Ether a commodity that works as a store of value like Bitcoin, it will also power the new generation of financial and social applications, much like the internet gave rise to social media and digital banking, they argued.

Or, to put it another way, while Bitcoin is likened to digital gold, Ethereum should be seen as “digital oil powering the digital economy,” the paper reads.

Seen in that light, Raman and the others argue that the $10 trillion market cap ain’t that outlandish.

Foundational software

“Global proven oil reserves have a combined market valuation of approximately $85 trillion,” they write. “This is a meaningful reference point for ETH given that it is on a similar trajectory, but for the digital realm.”

If Ethereum becomes the foundational software layer of the new economy — akin to an operating system, like Microsoft Windows — then that’ll yield a massive boon for the network as every transaction on the Ethereum blockchain incurs a cost that must be paid in Ether.

And things are changing, Raman said.

While crypto advocates used to struggle to pique the interest of skeptical investors and financiers, Raman said he’s found himself fielding inquiries from institutions that want to better understand the world’s second largest blockchain.

“I spent four years trying to shout into the wind about this whole ETH thing and tokenisation thing, and no one cared. Now it’s gone the other way,” he said.

Crypto market movers

• Bitcoin is trading flat over the past 24 hours at $104,947.
• Ethereum is down 0.3% at $2,528.

What we’re reading

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com.