PANews reported on September 16th that Wall Street giant Citigroup has released a new Ethereum price forecast, predicting it will reach $4,300 by the end of the year, a drop from its current price. However, this is only a base case scenario. The bank's comprehensive assessment covers a wide range, with an optimistic scenario predicting Ethereum prices of $6,400 and a pessimistic one of $2,200.

Citi analysts said that network activity remains a key driver of Ethereum's value, but most of the recent growth has occurred on the second-layer network, and its "value transfer" to the underlying Ethereum network is still unclear. Citi assumes that only 30% of Layer 2 network activity contributes to Ethereum's valuation, which means that the current price is higher than its activity-based model prediction, which may be due to the strong capital inflows and market enthusiasm brought by tokenization and stablecoins. Citi expects that given Ethereum's small market capitalization and low popularity among new investors, its capital inflows will remain limited. Macro factors are believed to provide only limited support. With the stock market approaching the bank's target of 6,600 points for the S&P 500, analysts do not expect risk assets to rise significantly.