Crypto Crystal Ball 2026: Will Ethereum Finally Go Parabolic?

It’s never easy being an Ethereum maxi. It’s true that ETH hit a new all-time high this year; but relative to the many recent technical and economic developments of the Ethereum network triumphssuch a price action still seems quite fail for many.

Ethereum has always been an anomaly, somewhere between Bitcoin’s golden store of value and all other existing crypto tokens. It’s certainly in a league of its own compared to most other tokens, but hasn’t quite had its Bitcoin moment yet.

At the beginning of every new year, Declutter explores the questions and themes that are likely to define the next twelve months. We’ve already wondered whether crypto will finally pass a market structure law, whether Wall Street will become the industry’s next nemesis, and whether 2026 will likely turn into a crypto winter.

Today we wonder, if we dare: will 2026 finally be the year that Ethereum starts to grow significantly in value?

Some say yes.

“It is now,” Vivek Raman, co-founder of Ethereum-focused Wall Street firm Etherealize, told me. Declutter of the network’s long-awaited moment of mass adoption. “And I don’t just say that.”

Raman has seen Wall Street giants flock to Ethereum this year, and expects ETH to soon become the “default asset” of an increasingly on-chain traditional economy.

After a decade of waiting, the “moment for hockey stick adoption” has finally arrived, he said.

As tokenized assets become more mainstream and institutions become more sophisticated in handling them, such developments could unlock additional billions of dollars of value within the Ethereum ecosystem.

“The tokenization of a treasury bill was in 2024,” James Smith, head of ecosystem at the Ethereum Foundation, told me Declutter. “Making it work within DeFi is 2026.”

Smith predicts that assets seen as mere novelty will fade next year, as “assets that generate returns or serve as DeFi collateral attract capital.”

Such developments could dramatically increase the amount of capital flowing through Ethereum – and with it ETH’s value as the engine of a network that powers not only DeFi, but also larger parts of the traditional economy.

While that process could start However, don’t expect ETH to overtake BTC by Christmas next year – or anything even close to such a result.

“ETH will eventually grow into a store of value alongside Bitcoin,” said Raman of Etherealize. “But Bitcoin’s turning point was actually five years earlier.”