CoinShares has outlined a five-year valuation framework for Ethereum that places ETH at $14,135 by 2031 in its bull case, arguing that the long-term value of the asset now depends less on base layer fees and more on its role as monetary, collateral and settlement infrastructure in the Ethereum economy.
How High Could Ethereum Reach by 2031?
The report, authored by Luke Nolan, CoinShares Senior Research Associate for Ethereum, frames ETH through a sum-of-parts model combining cash flow valuation, monetary premium valuation, and additional network/speculative overlay. The key findings are broad: a bear case of approximately $1,443 by 2031, a base case of $4,935, and a bull case of $14,135, implying annualized returns of -9%, 16%, and 43%, respectively, from current spot levels.
Ethereum is becoming increasingly difficult to value.
After Dencun, fees collapsed, but network usage continued to grow. Our latest research from Luke Nolan (@eazygambit) presents a 5-year sum-of-the-parts framework for ETH, combining cash flow, monetary premium, and network effects.
Base case: ~$4,935… pic.twitter.com/dd938gknAR
– CoinShares (@CoinSharesCo) June 2, 2026
The central premise is that Ethereum became more difficult to value after Dencun. CoinShares notes that the upgrade moved execution activity from the base layer to Layer 2 networks, thereby reducing usage costs and higher throughput, but also significantly reducing the fee revenue that previously supported ETH’s “ultrasound money” narrative. Weekly fees that peaked at more than $200 million in early 2024 are now closing in on $10 million, even as monthly active users have roughly doubled over the same period.
“Ether is not a tech stock and it is not digital gold,” the report said. “It is the native asset of a permissionless platform on which builders can deploy virtually anything, backed by decentralized security, industry-leading liquidity, and global access. Within this ecosystem, ether also functions as money and collateral.”
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This distinction determines the structure of the model. CoinShares’ first framework treats Ethereum as a business selling block space, projecting fee revenue on DEX trading, stablecoin transfers, DeFi activity, blob transactions, ETH transfers, real-world asset settlement, staking operations, and a residual “other” category. In this context, the contribution to the price of ETH in 2031 is modest: $25 in the bearish case, $385 in the base case and $2,055 in the bullish case.
Ethereum’s future depends on a monetary premium
The second frame has a lot more weight. It treats ETH as the monetary and collateral base of the Ethereum ecosystem, modeling staking demand, DeFi collateral, layer 2 reserves, ETF inflows, corporate treasury allocations, and store of value purchases. CoinShares reports that this component produces a price contribution for 2031 of $1,774 in the bear case, $3,960 in the base case, and $10,065 in the bull case.
Throughout the report, the bull case is deliberately demanding. This assumes that Ethereum’s structural demand sources are accumulating at high levels, rather than simply stabilizing. CoinShares models fee revenue reaching $5.7 billion by 2031, supported by DEX volumes growing at a CAGR of 25% and Ethereum L1 market share increasing to 35%. The stablecoin supply, in this scenario, reaches $2.8 trillion with a CAGR of 50%, while real-world tokenized assets reach $420 billion on Ethereum specifically.
ETF flows are also a major variable. In the bull case, CoinShares assumes that annual ETF flows will reach $40 billion by 2031, while corporate purchases will reach $25 billion and store of value demand will increase significantly as the asset class matures. A 3x regime multiplier is then applied to buying pressure, reflecting a market environment with fewer willing sellers and stronger price discovery.
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“The bull case requires the six demand catalysts identified in Section 4 to accumulate to high levels, with Ethereum increasing its market share over time rather than maintaining it,” CoinShares wrote. “You could consider this scenario a ‘everything went perfectly and then some’ scenario.”
The basic scenario is more sober, but still constructive. It assumes that Ethereum remains the dominant smart contract blockchain, DEX volumes grow at a CAGR of 17%, L1 DEX share maintains at 20%, stablecoin supply on Ethereum reaches approximately $450 billion by 2031, and DeFi TVL compounds are at 25%. This path gives ETH an implied price of $4,935 by 2031, an increase of approximately 110% over five years.
CoinShares says the greatest likelihood is somewhere between the base and bull cases. The report claims that Ethereum does not need to win every category to meet the base case target, but it does need to hold DEX share, maintain its position stable, deliver upgrades such as Glamsterdam, and see ETH ETF flows improve toward bitcoin-adjusted levels.
The main risk is that Ethereum’s economic problems after Dencun will not be resolved. CoinShares explicitly flags low fee revenue, uncertain blob mechanisms, competitive pressure from alternative layer 1s, regulatory friction, monetary policy changes, and delayed scaling milestones as variables that could force model revision.
At press time, ETH was trading at $1,870.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
