Trend Research: The optimistic prediction for ETH in the new cycle is 10,000 USD.

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 in the new valuation of ETH is the capture of the trend of convergence of key digital assets with traditional finance. We are concerned that BTC, as the most important digital asset, has opened the prelude to being included in the strategic reserve assets by various states in the United States after the adoption of spot ETFs, and has gradually become a scale expansion and strategic replacement of US dollar assets to a certain extent, currently ranking 6th in the global asset market capitalization, and the US BTC spot ETF currently manages about $118.6 billion in assets, accounting for about 6% of the total market value of Bitcoin. There is no doubt about the convergence of crypto assets with traditional finance. In an interview in Dubai in May, CZ said that the price of bitcoin could reach $500,000 to $1 million in this market cycle.

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

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

• The imminent end of the US QT and the further beginning of interest rate cuts
• The newly appointed SEC chair may bring breakthroughs in the promotion of tokenization on the ETH chain and legislation related to staking.
• The management and roadmap of the ETH Foundation should be rectified to maintain a certain level of infrastructure innovation.
• Maintain a stable growth on-chain financial ecosystem
• Under long-term optimistic predictions, ETH is expected to challenge $10,000 in the new cycle, and the following conditions need to be met:
• BTC rises above 300k USD
• ETH brings brilliant infrastructure innovations beneficial to DeFi
• US institutions are driving 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 Ignored

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

Uniswap is the earliest and also the largest Dex protocol in the encryption market, with a TV of 4.7 billion USD and a daily trading volume of over 2 billion USD, generating a revenue of 900 million USD per year. UNI is fully circulated, with about 40% locked for governance, currently having a circulating market value 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 users to control the use of the treasury through voting, and can indirectly have a positive effect on the price of UNI through governance proposals, such as in 2024, when the DAO voted to repurchase 10 million UNI.

The decoupling between protocol income and token revenue is mainly due to the SEC's risk considerations regarding the qualitative regulation of securities. Currently, as the regulation of encryption in the United States is gradually becoming more lenient and standardized, there may be an upgrade possibility for UNI's protocol allocation in the future.

Recently, the main progress of Uniswap is 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 TV of $23 billion, generating $450 million in revenue per year, and 100% of its tokens are in circulation, with a current market value of $3.3 billion.

Similar to UNI, the protocol's revenue does not have a direct dividend relationship with AAVE, but rather influences it indirectly through governance.

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

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 a issuance scale only behind USDT and USDC. 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 over the 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, planning to launch the stablecoin product iUSDe targeted at traditional financial institutions, integrating its stablecoin sUSDe into the Teegram application, and is also building an ecosystem based on its stablecoin sUSDe, including a perpetual and Spot exchange Etherea based on its own application chain and an on-chain options and structured products protocol Derive.