Standard chartered Monday, called to tax excess profits made by the blockchains of layer 2 operating Ethereum ETH / USDwarning that without such measures, the decline of Ethereum in relation to Bitcoin will probably continue.
The recommendation, which is part of a detailed research note published on Monday, maintains that Les Networks de Couche -2 – in particular Base– Extract a substantial value of Ethereum without contributing proportionally to its ecosystem.
What happened: Geoffrey KendrickThe global manager of digital asset research of the bank, compared the uncontrolled profitability of these secondary blockchains to foreign mining companies which are faced with taxes.
“The solution would be to impose layer 2 on super-application in the same way as governments sometimes charge super taxes for mining companies belonging to mining companies that extract excess profits,” said Kendrick.
According to the report, the market capitalization of Ethereum suffered considerably from the rise of the base, a layer 2 blockchain developed by Jamming COIN.
Research estimates that the basis alone has drained around $ 50 billion in value capitalization of Ethereum.
The loss is allocated to the conservation base of the majority of its costs of costs – estimated at 80% – and redirect it to Coinbase, while a single fraction dates back to the Ethereum network for layers of layer 1.
The report underlines that the own levels of Ethereum, including the merger 2022 of proof of bet and the update of Dencun 2024, contributed to this trend.
These changes, while improving scalability and reduction of costs, also have Ethereum commodity in its own ecosystem, allowing the layers to dominate the generation of income.
Also read: Trump administration signals a neutral Bitcoin accumulation strategy
Why is it important: Consequently, Standard Charterd has revised its price of price Ethereum downwards, providing that ETH reaches $ 4,000 by the end of 2025, a clear drop in the previous estimate of $ 10,000.
The ETH -BTC price ratio should also drop, reaching 0.015 by 2027 – it has been the lowest since early 2017.
Kendrick has developed the wider implications, declaring: “The modifications made to Ethereum in recent years, although perhaps necessary, have been destructive. The merger has deleted the status of proof of single ETH work among the peers of intelligent contracts, and the concept of layer 2 gave value free of charge. Dencun then gave layer 2 even more power and created areas for them.”
The analysis introduces the concept of blockchain “GDP” to measure the value generated in the Ethereum ecosystem, comparing it to national economic production.
This metric reveals that an increasing share of the transaction activity – and profits – occurs outside the Ethereum Mainat, in particular on the basis, moreover supporting the case of intervention.
While other strokes love Arbitrum ARB / USD And Optimism OP / USD Do not extract external profits in the same way, the report distinguishes the base as a source of market capitalization erosion.
The continuous growth of the base, which explains the majority of new addresses among the main layers 2, suggests that this trend could accelerate unless corrective measures are taken.
Standard Charted argues that only a proactive change compared to the Ethereum Foundation – such as the implementation of a tax on layer 2 – can reverse the current trajectory.
Without this, the bank sees the underperformance of Ethereum compared to persistent bitcoin in the years to come.
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