Ether Could Outperform Bitcoin 40% by Year-End, Standard Chartered Says

Standard Chartered's digital assets research team sees a structural advantage tilting in Ether's favor, one that could drive the ETH/BTC pair from its current 0.028 level to 0.04 by December. That math translates to Ether outperforming Bitcoin by more than 40% even if both assets move in the same direction.

The thesis hinges on a fundamental difference in how Bitcoin and Ether treasury companies fund themselves. Geoffrey Kendrick, Standard Chartered's global head of digital assets research, laid out the case in a recent client note: Bitcoin firms like MicroStrategy depend on price appreciation and capital raises to cover operating costs. Ether firms, by contrast, can tap staking income – currently yielding around 3% annually – to generate recurring revenue without liquidating holdings.

Kendrick marked June 2 as a potential inflection point. When MicroStrategy announced a $2.5 billion Bitcoin sale that day, the broader crypto market stumbled, yet Ether clearly outpaced Bitcoin. That single session produced one of the largest moves in the ETH/BTC ratio on a down day for Bitcoin since 2024. Ether has rallied about 5% against Bitcoin since then, according to CoinDesk.

The cash-generation story becomes clearer through MicroStrategy's inverse. BitMine Immersion Technologies, chaired by Tom Lee, has accumulated $11 billion of Ether without issuing debt. Despite carrying mark-to-market losses on those holdings, BitMine generates roughly $258 million in annualized staking income today and expects annual rewards to approach $300 million through its proprietary staking platform, MAVAN. That recurring yield removes pressure to sell into weakness or raise dilutive capital.

Kendrick noted that BitMine and SharpLink Gaming trade at lower premiums to net asset value than MicroStrategy, but that valuation gap could compress if investors begin pricing in recurring income. The significance of MicroStrategy's sale, in his view, was not the $2.5 million transaction size itself – negligible relative to total holdings – but what it revealed about the economic constraints facing Bitcoin treasury companies.

Whether the market reprices Ether relative to Bitcoin on the strength of staking income remains the open question. Traders should watch the ETH/BTC pair for sustained breaks above 0.030 and monitor quarterly staking yield announcements from major Ether holders. A sustained dividend-like income stream could reshape how institutional investors weigh these assets.