Leading British investment bank Standard Chartered has produced an eye-popping valuation of Ethereum, saying it is worth roughly seven to 10 times its present price.

Standard Chartered, a top 10 UK bank that dwarfs Macquarie Group(ASX:MCQ) in size, this week produced a 17-page “Ethereum investor guide” “structurally” valuing the No. 2 cryptocurrency at US$26,000 to US$35,000.

That may seem high, “but we think the current price reflects both the relatively complexity of ETH (versus BTC) and the uncertainty around ETH’s development,” the report says.

“In other words, while potential returns may be greater for ETH than for BTC, risks are also higher.”

“For this ETH valuation range to be attainable, we assume that BTC would also need to trade towards the upper end of its valuation range (which we estimate at USD 175,000),” wrote analysts Geoff Kenrick, Christopher Graham and Melissa Chan.

“If the dominant crypto asset (BTC) trades well, we think this will benefit investor perceptions of other crypto assets.”

The transition to Ethereum 2.0 could transform Ethereum by increasing its functionality and scalability while reducing environmental concerns, the analysts say.

While the timeline for this transition could slip — currently it’s scheduled for early next year — the circulating supply of Ether may diminish as users stake more coins for the 2.0 rollout, the report says.

When Ethereum does move to proof-of-stake and sharding, it could potentially handle 100,000 transactions per second, up from around 30 today, the analysts write.

The report doesn’t include any timeframe for its price prediction, but the entire analysis involves events in the next year or two.

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