DeFi protocol Derive’s Head of Research, Dr. Sean Dawson, has given a bullish prediction for the Ethereum price. He predicted that second largest crypto could rally as high as $12,000 and explained how the Pectra upgrade could contribute to the parabolic rally.
Ethereum reaches $12,000 thanks to Pectra upgrade and other factors
Dawson predicted that Ethereum could reach $12,000 by the end of the year thanks to the Pectra upgrade, Donald Trump’s presidency, increased adoption and an increase in ETF inflows. According to the research analyst, this bullish case is possible if Pectra upgrade is successful. The upgrade is meant to help scale the network and increase the user experience.
Given Donald Trump’s pro-crypto Dawson is also confident that the US president-elect would create a regulatory-friendly environment, which would support further growth for Ethereum. For ETH to reach this $12,000 goal, Dawson also said that Ethereum needs to witness wider adoption in the real asset (RWA) industry. The network must also become a top player in emerging sectors such as DePIN and AI agents.
The Ethereum exchange traded funds (ETF) also has a role to play in ETH reaching this goal. Dawson mentioned that there needs to be more significant inflows into these funds. He warned that the failure of these funds to attract institutional interest could lead to a bearish fall for Ethereum.
For the bearish case, the research analyst predicted that Ethereum could drop to as low as $2,000 due to lack of inflows to Find ETH ETFs. He noted that this could happen if these funds lose ground to a successful Solana ETF launch. This undoubtedly remains a possibility, given how Solana dominated last year in terms of network activity.
Dawson warned that other layer-1 networks are challenging Ethereum’s market share, although he added that this could offer higher risk and reward opportunities.
ETH still bullish despite recent market decline
Crypto analysts have suggested that Ethereum still has a bullish outlook despite the recent market decline. In an X post, cryptoanalyst Moon Carl stated that despite the recent dump, ETH is still trading within one symmetrical triangle on the daily time frame. The analyst added that if the support holds, a breakout with a bullish target of $4,100 can be expected.
Cryptoanalyst The Cryptomist also charted a path for Ethereum to reach a new one all-time high (ATH). She brought out a large falling wedge, which was in play with symmetrical deviations. She added that ETH could retest the broken level, then reject the support and insert a 4-hour oversold bullish divergence, then bounce to a new ATH.
At the time of writing, the Ethereum price is trading at around $3,300, up over the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
Featured image created with Dall.E, charts from Tradingview.com
