CoinShares has laid out a five-year valuation framework for Ethereum that puts ETH at $14,135 by 2031 in its bull case, arguing that the asset’s long-term value now depends less on base-layer fees and more on its role as money, collateral and settlement infrastructure across the Ethereum economy.
How High And Low Could Ethereum Go By 2031?
The report, written by Luke Nolan, CoinShares’ senior research associate for Ethereum, frames ETH through a sum-of-parts model combining a cash-flow valuation, a monetary premium valuation and an additional network/speculative overlay. The headline outputs are wide: a bear case of roughly $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 getting harder to value.
After Dencun, fees collapsed, but network usage kept growing. Our latest research by Luke Nolan (@eazygambit) introduces a 5-year sum-of-parts framework for ETH, combining cash flows, monetary premium, and network effects.
Base case: ~$4,935… pic.twitter.com/dd938gknAR
— CoinShares (@CoinSharesCo) June 2, 2026
The central premise is that Ethereum has become harder to value after Dencun. CoinShares notes that the upgrade moved execution activity away from the base layer and toward layer-2 networks, pushing user costs down and throughput higher, but also sharply reducing the fee revenue that had previously supported ETH’s “ultrasound money” narrative. Weekly fees that peaked above $200 million in early 2024 now run closer to $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 states. “It is the native asset of a permissionless platform on which builders can deploy essentially anything, drawing on decentralised security, leading liquidity, and global access. Within that ecosystem, ether also functions as money and as collateral.”
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That distinction drives the structure of the model. CoinShares’ first framework treats Ethereum like a business selling blockspace, projecting fee revenue across DEX trading, stablecoin transfers, DeFi activity, blob transactions, ETH transfers, real-world asset settlement, staking operations and a residual “other” category. In that framework, the contribution to ETH’s 2031 price is modest: $25 in the bear case, $385 in the base case and $2,055 in the bull case.
Ethereum’s Future Depends On A Monetary Premium
The second framework carries much more weight. It treats ETH as the monetary and collateral base of the Ethereum ecosystem, modeling demand from staking, DeFi collateral, layer-2 reserves, ETF inflows, corporate treasury allocations and store-of-value buying. CoinShares says this component produces a 2031 price contribution of $1,774 in the bear case, $3,960 in the base case and $10,065 in the bull case.
Across the report, the bull case is deliberately demanding. It assumes Ethereum’s structural demand sources compound at elevated levels, rather than merely stabilize. CoinShares models fee revenue reaching $5.7 billion by 2031, supported by DEX volumes growing at a 25% CAGR and Ethereum L1 market share expanding to 35%. Stablecoin supply, in this scenario, reaches $2.8 trillion at a 50% CAGR, while tokenized real-world assets scale to $420 billion on Ethereum specifically.
ETF flows are also a major variable. In the bull case, CoinShares assumes annual ETF flows reach $40 billion by 2031, while corporate buying rises to $25 billion and store-of-value demand grows meaningfully 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 compound at high levels, with Ethereum increasing its market share over time as opposed to maintaining it,” CoinShares wrote. “One might consider this scenario an ‘everything has worked out perfectly and more’ scenario.”
The base case is more restrained, but still constructive. It assumes Ethereum remains the dominant smart contract blockchain, DEX volumes grow at a 17% CAGR, L1 DEX share holds at 20%, stablecoin supply on Ethereum reaches around $450 billion by 2031 and DeFi TVL compounds at 25%. That path gives ETH a $4,935 implied price by 2031, or roughly 110% upside over five years.
CoinShares says the greatest probability lies somewhere between the base and bull cases. The report argues Ethereum does not need to win every category to clear the base-case target, but it does need to hold DEX share, maintain its stablecoin position, deliver scaling upgrades such as Glamsterdam, and see ETH ETF flows improve toward bitcoin-adjusted levels.
The key risk is that Ethereum’s post-Dencun economics remain unresolved. CoinShares explicitly flags weak fee revenue, uncertain blob mechanics, competitive pressure from alternative layer-1s, regulatory friction, monetary policy changes and delayed scaling milestones as variables that could force the model to be revisited.
At press time, ETH traded at $1,870.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
