**Jan. 23 (CoinDesk) — ** Ethereum and the broader crypto market pulled back this week despite a strong start to 2024, but Standard Chartered’s Head of Digital Asset Research Geoff Kendrick remains bullish on the space. ETH traded around $2,912 during early U.S. trading Friday, down ~12% on the week and now 1.7% lower year-to-date (YTD). BitMine (BMNR) — the largest corporate holder of Ethereum currently, per Tom Lee — saw its stock drop nearly 9% this week, pushing its YTD decline to ~10%. Kendrick highlighted a surge in Ethereum network activity lately, with transaction volume hitting a record high. That’s largely tied to December’s Fusaka upgrade, which boosted capacity. Unlike past upgrades that failed to drive sustained growth, Fusaka has eased bottlenecks, letting more users and devs transact smoothly — a key difference from prior cycles, he noted. BitMine hasn’t slowed its Ethereum purchases, Kendrick added, and Lee outlined plans for more acquisitions at the firm’s annual shareholder meeting last week. Macro tailwinds also support risk assets (including crypto): Greenland tariff risks are gone, Japan’s bond market rebounded early this week after a panic selloff, and BlackRock fixed-income chief Rick Rieder is increasingly likely to be the next Fed chair. Those factors make a weekend long position in ETH and BMNR a strong risk/reward play, he said.
