How much could Ethereum be worth in the near future? One cryptocurrency expert makes a bullish prediction.

While Bitcoin has made headlines in 2024 with the approval of spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and the upcoming halving, Benzinga looks into how Ethereum (ETH) is potentially positioned to make waves in the coming months and years, according to Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood. 

Ark Invest held its Big Ideas event, an annual opportunity to review high-level market trends and potentially disruptive technologies. At one of these events, Wood asserted that Ethereum could reach a market capitalization of $20 trillion by 2032. 

The current market cap of ETH is around $400 billion and has approached $500 billion in 2024. The market cap of the S&P 500 is around $40 trillion to $45 trillion. If ETH were to amass a market capitalization of $20 trillion, the price per token would be around $166,000. 

The Ark Invest CEO believes the mainstream adoption of ETH as a financial tool will be the main catalyst for this price prediction. Ethereum is a way for people to access decentralized finance applications. The applications allow anyone to interact with different financial actions, such as trading, lending, borrowing and staking, without going through a centralized intermediary. If these applications are adopted on a large scale, the demand for ETH — and its price — could increase. 

Talks of spot Ethereum ETFs are ongoing. Releasing the ETFs could have an impact similar to that of spot Bitcoin ETFs, which brought in huge amounts of inflows and propelled the price of Bitcoin higher. 

But potential ETF sponsors face several regulatory hurdles, particularly related to the Security and Exchange Commission's (SEC) classification of ETH as a security rather than a commodity as BTC was classified. Despite this, some are still confident that ETH ETFs could come as soon as this year, which could positively affect the price of Ethereum. 

Wood is known for making extraordinary predictions about tokens well into the future. For example, at Bitcoin Investor Day in March, she predicted that Bitcoin would reach a high of $3.8 million by 2030. While these predictions may have some merit, they are largely speculative and may be influenced by Ark's entanglement with the assets. The company was one of several that released a spot Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) and also offers an Ethereum futures ETF (ARKZ). So, Wood could be giving these predictions as a way to increase engagement with her firm's products. 

If ETH reaches $166,000 per token by 2030, it would create huge gains. Specifically, an investment of $1,000 would be worth $54,330. An investment of $10,000 would be worth $543,300. These huge profits may not come to fruition, but according to Wood, they are a possibility.