Ethereum News Today: Consensys Sees Ethereum Reaching $15,800 by 2028 as Trustware

As Ethereum marks its 10-year milestone, Consensys is reimagining the blockchain's role, positioning it as essential infrastructure for a new era of trust, termed "trustware." This vision envisions Ethereum evolving from a smart contract platform into a foundation for programmable, verifiable trust in financial systems, potentially driving the price of Ether (ETH) to $15,800 by 2028.

Trust is fundamental to economic systems, from banking to legal frameworks, with an estimated $9.3 trillion spent annually on trust infrastructure. Ethereum, with its decentralized and transparent code, offers a digital alternative: trustware. This concept highlights the significant economic value Ethereum is already contributing, serving as a programmable alternative to traditional intermediaries.

Consensys' bullish outlook on ETH is underpinned by the "cost-to-corrupt" framework, which links Ethereum's market capitalization to the security it provides for onchain assets like stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets. According to this framework, given the projected growth in these asset categories—$1 trillion in stablecoins, $500 billion in tokenized real-world assets, and $300 billion in DeFi TVL by 2028—ETH could reach $15,800. These projections are considered conservative, with some estimates suggesting even higher values.

Despite facing competition, Ethereum remains a leader in securing high-quality liquid assets, with $220 billion compared to Solana's $20.3 billion and Avalanche's $3.7 billion. The entire crypto market represents only 0.3% of global wealth, indicating substantial room for further adoption. Consensys envisions the next era as one of "agentic finance," where global-scale finance is managed by sophisticated algorithms, with Ethereum at its core.

Over the past decade, Ethereum's architecture has been refined through 21 network upgrades and numerous innovations, from smart contracts and DeFi to proof-of-stake and tokenized real-world assets. With over 1 million validators across 84 countries, Ethereum stands as a pillar of decentralization and security. As trustware becomes the critical infrastructure for global finance, Consensys believes Ethereum is poised to capture trillions of value, with ETH holders just beginning to realize its potential.