Ethereum has had a remarkable year, nearly doubling in value, yet Wall Street isn’t convinced the rally can keep running without a pause. Citigroup, one of the world’s largest financial institutions, now believes ETH may close the year around $4,300, slightly below today’s ETH price levels
Citi’s view is sparking debate in crypto circles since they rarely make risky predictions.
According to their bank’s analysts, much of Ethereum’s recent growth has been happening on Layer-2 networks like Arbitrum and Optimism rather than directly on Ethereum’s base layer.
While these scaling solutions boost adoption, Citi estimates that only about 30% of that activity benefits ETH’s core value.
On top of that, regulatory uncertainty and wider macroeconomic challenges are seen as possible headwinds. With U.S. stocks already close to Citi’s own S&P 500 target, analysts expect only modest support from risk assets like crypto in the near term.
To be clear, Citi isn’t betting against Ethereum completely. Their forecast comes with a wide range of bullish cases at $6,400 if ETF inflows and regulation work in Ethereum’s favor, and a bearish case at $2,200 if conditions sour.
This spread shows just how uncertain the road ahead is for ETH, despite its role as the backbone of DeFi and NFTs.
Interestingly, Citi noted that while Ethereum ETFs don’t attract as much capital as Bitcoin ETFs, every dollar that flows into ETH products tends to have a stronger impact on price.
Supporting the analysis of Citigroup veteran trader Ted, who predicts Ethereum could see a short-term dip before a major rally. According to his analysis, ETH’s price pattern is starting to mirror the explosive 2020–2021 rally; an initial rally, a sharp correction, a long accumulation phase, and then a strong breakout.
ETH has cleared $4,250–$4,500 resistance, but a small dip is likely. If the pattern holds, ETH could rise toward $8K–$10K soon.
For now, Ethereum sits at around $4,500, holding a strong 13% share of the total crypto market.
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