While Standard Chartered expects the price of Bitcoin to roughly quintuple by the end of 2029, the multinational bank says that there’s an altcoin that could substantially outrun it.
Layer-1 blockchain Avalanche’s utility token AVAX could jump to $250 by the end of the decade—a 1,326% spike as of this writing—according to an April report from the bank.
By comparison, Standard Chartered predicts that Bitcoin’s price will rise nearly 500% to $500,000 by the end of 2029.
AVAX is currently trading at $18, while Bitcoin is hovering near $82,650, CoinGecko data shows.
Avalanche’s unique approach to scaling its network through sets of dedicated L1 app networks (previously called subnets) will likely drive the predicted price boom, wrote Geoff Kendrick, global head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered.
“Avalanche’s current small market cap means that incremental development improvements can have a big impact,” Kendrick said in the report. “As a result, we see AVAX outperforming both Bitcoin and Ethereum in terms of relative price gains.”
Avalanche is one of several blockchains that have aggressively aimed to improve transaction speeds and costs on its network in a bid to attract more users and developers.
Long considered the Wild West of the crypto industry, the DeFi or decentralized finance sector courts far fewer users than centralized platforms, leading to fierce competition among protocols.
Last December, Avalanche completed its Etna Upgrade, increasing support for its scaling solution and making it cheaper to engage with the network. Following the upgrade, the cost of establishing an L1 on Avalanche fell dramatically. Since then, more developers have flocked to Avalanche—and that migration to the network could continue, according to Kendrick.
“We think the current development momentum is likely to continue, supporting activity growth on Avalanche and driving AVAX price gains,” Kendrick said.
He added that “while it is still too early to tell whether the new [L1] approach will work… the fact that one-quarter of active [L1s] are already Etna-compatible is encouraging.”
Standard Chartered expects positive price action for AVAX as soon as this year, with the bank predicting that the token will hit $55 by the end of 2025, according to the report. The bank’s forecast predicts the token’s price will hit $100 in 2026, $150 in 2027 and $200 in 2028.
AVAX peaked at a price of nearly $145 in 2021 and sits nearly 88% below that mark, as of this writing.
Edited by James Rubin
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