Tim Chen, the global head of strategies at Mantle, recently gave a prediction that Ethereum (ETH) could reach $80,000 in the medium term. He also mentioned the potential reasons behind the surge, including U.S. President Donald Trump’s involvement.
Speaking during a live session, Che framed ETH as the next big treasury asset, powered by native yield and macroeconomic tailwinds. “If we believe that ETH’s next narrative is a treasury asset, there’s a bull case to be made for $80,000 ETH,” he said.
According to Chen, Ethereum’s yield, which is currently around 4%, now matches that of U.S. T-bills. With the Federal Reserve under pressure to cut interest rates by as much as 250 basis points, Che believes a massive capital rotation from bonds into ETH is imminent. “When that happens, you’re telling me a lot of capital won’t flow into ETH? I bet it will,” he added.
Chen emphasized that price movement in the crypto space largely depends on new money entering from traditional finance. Today, much of the on-chain activity consists of capital recycling between DeFi protocols and creating memes and narratives to shuffle funds rather than attracting net new capital.
Chen believes that the key to unlocking Ethereum’s value is positioning it as a digital treasury with yield, not just “ultrasound money.” He noted that while that term resonates in crypto circles, it doesn’t land well with traditional finance.
“You talk to TradFi guys… they’re thinking, how do I make money off this?” Chen said. Instead, he recommends simplifying the message: Ethereum is a high-yielding digital asset, much like MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin strategy, but with cash flow.
Chen cited a report by Etherealize titled “ETH: Digital Oil”, which compares Ethereum to oil, based on its productivity and yield generation. He said, “Gold is $22 trillion, but with yield, we can start thinking about ETH as a global bond market or the global M2 supply… those are $140 trillion markets.”
Chen added, “There’s an argument to be made that ETH is much more similar to oil… and that’s an $85 trillion asset class. Now I’m not that bullish, so let’s tap our expectations. Medium-term, I think we can get to a $10 trillion market cap. And that’s how we get the road to $80,000 ETH.”
He pointed to MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin model as an inspiration. “What if you could do the same with Ethereum that generates yield? That makes sense to them,” he said.
Even President Donald Trump made the narrative. Chen pointed out that Trump has consistently copied the most profitable trends in crypto, from memecoins to stablecoins and even Bitcoin mining. If Trump starts tweeting bullish takes on Ethereum or launches an ETH-backed treasury, it could serve as a strong validation signal.
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