The price of ether (ETH) has the potential to reach $8,000 by the end of 2026 versus its current level just below $1,,600, writes Geoff Kendrick, Head of FX Research, West, and Digital Assets Research at Standard Chartered Bank, CoinDesk reports. 

While Ethereum's dominant uses currently are non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized finance (DeFi), said Kendrick, an evolution towards gaming and tokenization should add "significant demand."

"Importantly, this should provide ‘proof of concept’ examples in which real-world industries come on-chain to exploit the benefits of Ethereum over their existing setups," he added. "We expect significant developments on these fronts by 2025-26."

In the shorter term, said Kendrick, the bitcoin (BTC) halving in April 2024 "should help lift all boats," and he sees ether hitting $4,000 by the end of next year.

On the latest episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Rogan says that he is bullish on Bitcoin, and he believes it can become a universal currency. He calls Bitcoin the most fascinating crypto and that it has the best chance of universal implementation, Watcher.Guru reports. 

Speaking to Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI, he says “That’s the one that has the most likely possibility of becoming a universal viable currency.” Bitcoin is the leading cryptocurrency on the market today. At press time, it is trading at $27,960.47.

“It’s limited in the amount that there can be, people can mine it, and that to me is very fascinating,” Rogan adds. He also comments on people who live their lives with Bitcoin daily. Rogan uses Andreas Antonopoulos, a tech entrepreneur from Greece, as an example of implementing Bitcoin in daily life.

Saudi Arabia ranked as the country with the highest growth volume of cryptocurrency transactions globally over a 12-month period, as adoption of decentralized finance gains traction in various countries across the Middle East, according to an industry report released Tuesday, and reported by Al-Monitor.

Decentralized finance is an overlaying term for the digital ecosystem that allows people to buy, sell, send and receive digital assets such as cryptocurrencies without relying on traditional intermediaries like banks, but rather publicly accessible blockchains, to make transactions.

The kingdom led globally with a 12% increase in crypto transaction volume reaching nearly $31 billion from July 2022 through June 2023, compared to the same period in 2021-22. It was followed by Vietnam (11.6%), Nigeria (9%) and Spain (6.9%), reported New York-based blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis in its 2023 Geography of Cryptocurrency Report.

The annual report since 2019 identified the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as the sixth largest crypto economy globally valued at $390 billion from July 2022 through June 2023, far behind leading regions like North America ($1.22 trillion) and Western Europe ($1.07 trillion). Chainalysis gathered data for the report by monitoring decentralized finance wallet services that allow the exchange of cryptocurrencies along with purchasing third-party data to monitor web traffic. 

JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s U.K. division, Chase UK, is putting the brakes on cryptocurrency-related payments, Bitcoin.com reports. Come October 16, any Chase UK customers attempting to make a bank transfer or card payment linked to crypto will find themselves thwarted.

A representative from Chase verified the email’s legitimacy to Bloomberg and shed light on their stance. Coindesk’s Sandali Handagama also reported on the Chase UK email on Tuesday prior to Bloomberg’s confirmation.

“We’ve seen an increase in the number of crypto scams targeting U.K. consumers, so we have taken the decision to prevent the purchase of crypto assets on a Chase debit card or by transferring money to a crypto site from a Chase account,” the Chase spokesperson revealed.

Chase made its move after a series of regulatory overhauls in the United Kingdom within the past six months. For instance, the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) introduced new guidelines for the crypto industry. Concurrently, the payments powerhouse Paypal has briefly suspended U.K.-based crypto transactions, pointing to these regulatory adjustments.

Bitcoin.com reports that Skybridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci has explained why he is still bullish on bitcoin. Emphasizing that every Wall Street firm is going to have a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in their arsenal that they will sell to their clients, he predicted: “The next 10 to 20 years are remarkably bullish.” He added: “If you got your bitcoin, I wouldn’t sell your bitcoin, you made it through winter.”

He cautioned that headwinds are still in the macro environment, including higher interest rates, an enforcement-centric Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman, and negative sentiment around crypto adoption. Nonetheless, he remains optimistic about BTC, stating: “As wealth is created in society, a portion of that wealth is going to get chipped off for digital assets, most likely bitcoin.” He also reiterated his long-standing view that “Bitcoin is better than gold.”

Scaramucci further expects the approval of bitcoin exchange-trading funds (ETFs) to be a game changer. 

David Hirsch, who runs the agency’s office that handles crypto enforcement, says that apart from Coinbase and Binance, there are other exchanges and DeFi straying from the law, CoinDesk reports. 

“We’re going to continue to bring those charges,” said Hirsch, who said the regulator has a number of other businesses on its radar that are operating in similar ways to Coinbase and Binance. His agency is already embroiled in a number of complex crypto cases in federal courts, and – as seen in its effort to appeal a recent Ripple ruling – not always with complete success.

Hirsch said the SEC’s interest in crypto goes well beyond the high-profile exchanges.

"We're going to continue to be active as to intermediaries,” he said. “That can be brokers, dealers, exchanges, clearing agencies or any others who are active in this space, are within our jurisdiction and not meeting their obligations, either through registration or failure to provide adequate or complete disclosures.”