Ethereum Could Hit $80,000, Says Etherealize CEO Vivek Raman

As Ethereum continues to enjoy a return to crypto stardom and a rally that has seen ETH climb more than 80% in the last year, there have been no shortage of higher and higher price targets.

BitMine chairman Tom Lee, for example, has increased his own Ethereum price target to $16,000 from $10,000 over the last month. But none of the new price targets come close to the one proffered by Etherealize CEO Vivek Raman.

As Raman explains in a new Coinage interview, the recent rally is just further proof Ethereum is on its way to becoming the world's ledger, and worthy of a trillion-dollar price tag. Extrapolating the rough math would see Ethereum trade at about $80,000 per token, he says.

"I think we have to dream a lot bigger. I think we're building the infrastructure for the whole global economy," Raman told Coinage. "We've almost been in this like PTSD thing where ETH has been performing so badly price-wise for so long that people just don't dream big."

In a way, there is no denying at least the thrust of that logic. Despite new all-time highs this cycle for Solana and Bitcoin, Ethereum has not traded north of $4,800 since the days of 2021. Considering all the major advancements the ecosystem, blockchain, and projects have made since then, it does seem overdue. Factor in a mega-trend of digital asset treasury companies raising billions of dollars every week to stockpile more Ethereum, and it does seem inevitable that Ethereum notches a new high at some point as well. But... $80,000?

As Raman explains, the price target stems from an Etherealize report that likened Ethereum to digital oil. It was one of the first reports published by the pro-Ethereum group Raman co-founded to help institutional investors understand the upside of what Ethereum offers. The early goal is simple.

"Let's plug all of Wall Street into Ethereum and then see how the financial system works when it settles and everything is on the blockchain," he says. "That's already starting with tokenization."

And as the stablecoin narrative has played out this year, with Circle's IPO catapulting the company into the minds of bankers on Wall Street everywhere, the plan seems to be working. Just a couple months later, CNBC contributor Tom Lee would join as BitMine chairman and begin talking about Ethereum being incredibly undervalued if Circle was worth the multiple the market was putting on it.

As Tom Lee mentioned to Coinage at the time, "Circle trades at around 100-times EBITDA … and a lot of Circle operates off Ethereum. So… if these tokenized assets like tokenized dollars traded 100-times EBITDA, what should the blockchain be valued at?”

If you ask Raman, that answer is $80,000 as Ethereum comes to establish itself as the ledger for the global economy.

"I think we're building the infrastructure for the whole global economy. And that's a $10 trillion asset," Raman says, admitting his price target is far higher than many others in the space. In order to get there, even Raman admits that a lot of things have to go right. But in a way, they already have.

As Raman sees it, Ethereum is only just beginning to enjoy the benefits of avoiding a potential regulatory disaster. Just last year, the prior regime at the Securities and Exchange Commission had Ethereum in its cross-hairs, and had brought lawsuits against many Ethereum builders — including Consensys, the company behind MetaMask. Fast forward to today, and the President's son Eric Trump is telling everyone to buy the Ethereum dip, while helping to steer the DeFi project World Liberty Financial.

As a community-owned media outlet built on Ethereum, Coinage can attest to the changing regulatory winds. When we were founded in 2022, many NFT projects were being sued by the SEC. Now, we are meeting with the SEC's crypto task force to help advocate for the right of other community-owned cooperatives to come onchain without meeting a similar fate.

"The real time for Ethereum's inflection was when the regulatory regime changed. I would argue all that happened just now," Raman says. "Everything that was a headwind is now becoming a tailwind."

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