This Institutional Investor Thinks Ethereum Will Outperform Solana During the Next 12 Months. Could It Happen?

Ethereum’s next major upgrade (Glamsterdam) was pushed back by as much as 6 months to Q4 2026, delaying the throughput/cost improvements that underpin bullish expectations versus Solana. Standard Chartered cut its end-2026 targets, lowering Solana from $310 to $250 and then to $135, while trimming Ethereum from $7,500 to $4,000—implying notably higher upside for Ethereum (~2x from ~$2,270) than Solana (~+57% from ~$86). The article frames a near-term relative edge for Ethereum, contingent on upgrade timing and whether Solana governance proposals pass.

Analysis

The market is likely overfitting to roadmap headlines and underweighting adoption inertia. In the next 1-3 months, SOL’s tokenomics vote matters more than ETH’s delayed throughput upgrade because supply-path changes can re-rate the asset faster than engineering timelines; but in 6-18 months, actual usage still dominates, and ETH’s moat in stablecoins/tokenized collateral is harder to dislodge than a narrative-driven L1 rally.

Second-order, the delayed ETH scaling path is not automatically bearish because L2s already absorb much of the throughput demand; the bigger risk is valuation multiple compression if investors conclude the “post-upgrade” growth story keeps slipping. On the other side, SOL’s proposed burn/issuance changes could be bullish for spot holders but may weaken staking yields, which can cut the attractiveness of the asset to yield-sensitive allocators and raise circulating supply volatility.

The contrarian view is that the consensus may be too confident that protocol tweaks map cleanly into price. If ETH’s upgrade slips again, the relative-value case weakens quickly; if SOL governance fails, the market may be forced to reprice the asset from a supply-tightening story back to a pure usage story, which is a lower-quality narrative in a risk-off tape. Falsifiers: SOL vote passes and activity/fees hold up for 4-8 weeks, or ETH upgrade lands back on schedule and total stablecoin share keeps expanding.

Net: this looks like a tactical relative-value setup, not a broad directional crypto call.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Tactically long ETH / short SOL on a 1-3 month horizon via futures or liquid spot proxies; thesis is that governance-risk asymmetry is more favorable for ETH if Solana’s vote disappoints, but size modestly because the move is narrative-driven.
• If SOL governance proposals pass, fade the initial spike with a partial short or call-spread sell into strength; the upside may be capped if staking economics deteriorate and allocators demand a higher discount rate.
• Do not chase ETH purely on the delayed upgrade headline; wait for confirmation that Glamsterdam remains on track into the next triage window. A second delay would be the cleaner short catalyst versus current levels.
• Watch for stablecoin share and on-chain settlement metrics over the next 1-2 quarters; if ETH continues to gain in those categories, any short-ETH/long-SOL pair becomes vulnerable and should be reduced.