Standard Chartered Calls 2026 the Year of Ethereum as Glamsterdam Targets 10K TPS

Standard Chartered Makes Its Ethereum Call for 2026

Ethereum has had a complicated year so far. ETH prices declined sharply in early 2026, falling more than 55 percent from their all-time high as broader market pressures weighed on the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. But the network's underlying development activity has never been more focused or ambitious. And Standard Chartered, one of the world's largest international banks, is betting that 2026 is the year Ethereum's long-promised scalability improvements finally arrive — and when ETH's investment thesis begins its next chapter.

The Glamsterdam Upgrade: Ethereum's Biggest Performance Leap

The case for 2026 as Ethereum's defining year hinges on Glamsterdam, the network's next major upgrade tentatively scheduled for H1 2026. Vitalik Buterin outlined eight Ethereum Improvement Proposals in late February that define the upgrade's scope — and the performance targets are transformative.

Glamsterdam introduces parallel transaction processing, with the gas limit expanding from 60 million to 200 million per block. The result is a projected 78.6 percent reduction in gas fees across both simple transfers and complex smart contract calls — a cost reduction that has the potential to unlock DeFi and tokenized asset use cases that were economically unviable at previous fee levels. Throughput is targeted at 10,000 transactions per second, approximately ten times Ethereum's current capacity, making the post-Glamsterdam network competitive with mainstream payment infrastructure.

For developers building on Ethereum and for users interacting with decentralized applications, the difference between current Ethereum and post-Glamsterdam Ethereum will be felt in every transaction.

Standard Chartered's Ethereum Investment Thesis

Geoffrey Kendrick, Standard Chartered's head of digital assets research, has laid out the bank's thesis directly: 2026 will be the year of Ethereum. The bank's revised year-end target for ETH is $4,000 — adjusted downward in February from a prior $7,500 target due to broader market weakness — with a long-term 2030 target raised to $40,000. That long-term target reflects deep confidence in the network's fundamental development trajectory even in a challenging near-term price environment.

The medium-term bull case rests on three factors: the Glamsterdam performance upgrade eliminating the fee structure that has historically driven users to competing chains; the improving ETH/Bitcoin ratio as Ethereum-specific catalysts materialize; and growing institutional appetite for ETH through spot ETF products that have reached exchanges in major markets.

On-Chain Activity vs. Price

One of the more interesting data points around Ethereum in early 2026 is the divergence between price and on-chain activity. Despite the price decline from all-time highs, active addresses on Ethereum have been tracking near their own all-time highs — suggesting that network utility is growing even as speculative sentiment has temporarily retreated. That kind of divergence typically resolves in favor of network activity over the medium term.

For investors positioned in ETH ahead of the Glamsterdam upgrade, the combination of depressed entry prices, record network activity, and a defined near-term catalyst creates an unusually clear setup to watch.

Sources: [CoinPedia](https://coinpedia.org) (March 2026), [MEXC News](https://www.mexc.com/news) (March 2026), [QuickNode Blog](https://blog.quicknode.com) (March 2026), [CoinTelegraph](https://cointelegraph.com) (March 2026)