16th January 2026 > > Miscellany.

tl;dr

An ETH price forecast for fun, the growth of RWA tokenisation, and the stablecoin revolution.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

Investors’ preference for stocks over cryptos remains intact.

Curious Crypto’s Commentary – ETH price forecast

Just for a bit of fun, Standard Chartered’s global head of crypto research, Geoffrey Kendrick, included this in an official report for his clients:

“While we lower our ETH-USD forecasts for 2026-28, we raise our 2029 forecast to USD 30,000 and introduce a new USD 40,000 forecast for end-2030.”

That’ll do.

Curious Crypto’s Commentary – Tokenisation & LINK

Curious Crypto’s Commentary – Stablecoin adoption

Interactive Brokers has announced that retail clients can now fund their online brokerage accounts using stablecoins:

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260115833568/en/Interactive-Brokers-Enables-247-Account-Funding-with-Stablecoin

On receipt, those stablecoins are converted into fiat dollars.

For all parties this is a major win. Stablecoin deposits are almost instantaneous, with tiny fees, compared to the slow process of depositing of fiat dollars with high fees, during banking hours and only five days a week. Milan Galik, CEO of IBKR, explains:

“Stablecoin funding provides international investors with the speed and flexibility required in today’s markets. Clients can transfer funds and begin trading within minutes, while also reducing transaction costs.”

The entire international settlements industry will soon be dominated by stablecoins, disintermediating those who take fat and unwarranted margins on the movement of funds between countries. Regular readers already know that the key beneficiaries of the stablecoin revolution will the world’s poor and dispossessed diaspora, highlighting to naysayers that cryptos will always hold the moral high ground.