By Aduragbemi Omiyale
A report by Finder.com has projected that the price of Ethereum (ETH) will likely reach $7,609 in 2022 and could fall to $6,000 by the end of the year due to heavy competition.
In its Ethereum Price Predictions Report, Finder.com’s panel of 33 fintech, cryptocurrency and NFT specialists predicted that ETH will peak at roughly 102 per cent higher than its price at the beginning of the year, advising investors to hold the digital coin.
But the Permission chief product officer Vanessa Harris thinks the move to the proof-of-stake model (PoS) will lead to a significant decrease in ETH’s price and predicts ETH will be worth just $100 by 2030.
“Ethereum has the strongest ecosystem of any smart contract platform but is plagued by high gas fees and low scalability. The move to Proof of Stake is unlikely to solve Ethereum’s scalability challenges though, and we should look to L2s and side chains to support ETH scalability,” she said.
As for the founder of Finder, Fred Schebesta, he predicts ETH will peak at $7,000 before dropping to $6,000 by the end of 2022 due to heavy competition.
“While the network certainly has advantages in global market awareness and developer base, it is also against increasingly strong competition that Bitcoin does not face by contrast,” he stated.
University of Brighton senior lecturer Paul Levy thinks ETH could go as high as $9,000 and will end the year at around $8,000.
“Ethereum, if it stays on top of technical and innovation challenges, will continue potentially erratic growth with the potential to thrive in the medium to longer term. It is an early innovation success story and that innovation potential needs to be matched by further innovation capability,” he said.
Longer-term, the panel predicts ETH will be worth $10,810 by the end of 2025, and $26,338 by the end of 2030. Though significant increases from ETH’s current price, these are 30 per cent and 48 per cent lower respectively than the panel’s predictions in October 2021.
Ethereum’s anticipated move to a PoS will likely lead to a price drop, according to one in ten panellists (11 per cent), while 79 per cent say the move will increase ETH’s price and the remaining 11 per cent say there’ll be no impact or they’re unsure.
Overall 19 per cent of the panel say it’s time to sell ETH, compared to just 10 per cent who say it’s time to sell Bitcoin (BTC). Meanwhile, 52 per cent say it’s time to buy Ethereum, and 30 per cent hold.
The Panxora Group CEO Gavin Smith expects a price drop following the move to PoS and thinks it’s time to sell.
“The improvements provided by proof of stake will not outweigh the negative impact of excessive gas prices. The change made recently to gas calculations will cancel out any reduction in gas prices that proof of stake would have provided.
“ETH is likely to be surpassed by a number of other smart contract blockchain protocols over the next 5 years,” he added.
Meanwhile, Thomson Reuters’ technologist and futurist Joseph Raczynski is part of the majority who says PoS will lead to an increase in ETH’s price and says ETH will cost $8,000 by the end of 2022, before reaching $15,000 by the end of 2025.
“Scalability and throughput are king, but doing this in a decentralised manner with security is critical – POS on ETH in 2022 should get them there.”
CoinSmart CEO and co-founder Justin Hartzman agrees with Raczynski but gave a slightly lower prediction of $7,500 for the end of 2022. He adds that the only real concern he has regarding PoS is the speed of its rollout.
“If the Ethereum 2.0 model is successful and PoS is properly implemented, we can expect ETH to moon real hard. My only concern is the speed of the rollout. Ethereum tends to be a bit slow with its updates, however, the community mostly supports any and all of their initiatives,” he said.
