Avalanche's AVAX Token Is Poised for Major Gains, Outpacing Bitcoin and Ether: Standard Chartered

Avalanche's AVAX token is poised for major gains in coming years that should outpace already bullish outlooks for both bitcoin and ether, according to Standard Chartered's Geoff Kendrick. By Sam Byfield.

Avalanche's (CRYPTO: AVAX) native token is poised for major gains in coming years that should outpace already bullish outlooks for both bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and ether (CRYPTO: ETH), according to Standard Chartered's Geoff Kendrick.

"The unique thing about Avalanche is how it is attempting to achieve scale. Unlike Ethereum or Solana (CRYPTO: SOL), Avalanche (AVAX) uses a set of subnets, or sidechains," Kendrick said in a note on Wednesday, initiating coverage on AVAX with a $55 price target for the end of 2025, $100 for 2026, $150 for 2027, $200 for 2028 and $250 by the completion of 2029.

"While it is still too early to tell whether the new subnet approach will work, we think the fact that one-quarter of active subnets are already Etna-compatible is encouraging."

He also pointed out the network's growing developer number since its upgrade in December, which cut the cost of establishing a subnet to nearly zero.

Avalanche, which stands at a $9 billion market cap, is currently the 15th-largest cryptocurrency by that metric, making it a great candidate to profit from a big impact even through incremental improvements, according to Kendrick. Among blockchains, it is the tenth-largest by total value locked (TVL).

"As a result, we see AVAX outperforming both Bitcoin and Ethereum in terms of relative price gains in the coming years, reaching a level around USD 250 by end-2029, more than 10x today’s price."

Ahead of the December upgrade, the Avalanche Foundation, the issuer of AVAX, raised $250 million in a token sale, led by Galaxy Digital (CRYPTO: GLXY), Dragonfly and ParaFi Capital.