- Ethereum is expected to trade at $1,377 by the end of the year.
- 48% say it’s time to buy ETH while 38% say it’s time to hodl.
- The vast majority of panelists (83%) think the Merge was not designed to have a short-term price impact on ETH, but a long-term one.
Ethereum Is Predicted To Hit $5,154 Within The Next Three Years
Ethereum (ETH) is predicted to hit US$5,154 by the end of 2025, according to Finder.com’s latest Ethereum Price Predictions Report.
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Finder.com’s panel of 55 industry specialists says ETH will peak at $1,722 this year before settling at around $1,377 by December.
Now is the time to buy ETH, according to 48% of panelists. An additional 38% say it’s time to hold while only 13% say it’s time to sell your ETH. This closely matches the panel’s sentiment on whether ETH is underpriced (46%), fairly priced (31%) or overpriced (23%).
OSOM Finance CEO and co-founder Anton Altement predicts that ETH will close this year at $2,750, mostly because the Merge has turned ETH into both a deflationary and a yield-bearing asset.
“All-round market pessimism driven by Fed's actions and still locked ETH staking are the key factors holding back the price. Former should disappear by December, latter by next spring – those 2 events will unlock the next legs of the rally.”
Ben Ritchie, managing director at Digital Capital Management, also mentions the deflationary nature after ETH moved to proof of stake (PoS).
“If the force that is preventing the Ethereum price from increasing has finally pivoted, we are likely to see a massive demand for this asset,” Ritchie says.
Not Everyone Is Optimistic About Ether's Price Post-Merge
Senior lecturer at the University of Canberra John Hawkins sees ETH closing out this year at $1,200. But long-term, he sees ETH ending 2030 at just $100.
“[Ether] remains volatile in price and in the longer term, the uses will better be met by central bank digital currencies [CBDCs]. As Hyun Song Shin from the BIS has put it, ‘anything crypto can do, CBDCs can do better’,” says Hawkins.
Co-founder and vice president at MetaTope Walker Holmes thinks ETH will trade at $800 by the end of this year. Holmes is optimistic that ETH will hit $30,000 by 2030, but the current market conditions hold ETH down.
“As long as the Fed continues to hike interest rates while also selling assets to the market, the path of least resistance is down for most risk assets,” says Holmes.
What The Merge Means For The Future Of ETH
The move from mining (PoW) to staking (PoS) comes with a huge impact on Ethereum and the broader crypto industry. Nearly half of the panel (48%) say the biggest positive impact on ETH’s price is the decline in issuance – the amount of new Ether entering circulation.
One-third of the panel (30%) say the reduction of ETH in circulation due to staking – “locking” ETH for a certain period to earn more ETH as a reward – will have the biggest positive impact on Ether’s price.
Only 22% of the panel say the burning of ETH from circulation as a result of network transactions will bring the biggest positive impact on the price.
Vetle Lunde, an analyst at Arcane Crypto, says, “While it's positive overall to see the ETH transition to PoS, it's very important to be aware of the trade-offs. The largest validators being exchanges represent a potential long-term risk.
Exchanges already find themselves in a difficult regulatory landscape, and precautionary rejections of transactions may conflict with one important core principle in the crypto ethos, censorship resistance.”
That is why 22% of the panelists think more than half of the Ethereum network will eventually be owned by a single player. However, the majority of the panelists (56%) don’t think more than half of the network will be owned by a single player. The other 22% are unsure.
You can find more information on Finder’s report here: https://www.finder.com/ethereum-eth-price-prediction
