An analysis said a turning point for Ethereum (ETH) to shift to strength against Bitcoin (BTC) began this week.

On June 3, blockchain media outlet CoinPost reported that Geoffrey Kendrick, head of digital asset research at Standard Chartered, said, "I see this Monday as the point when ETH began to outperform BTC."

The trigger for the analysis was a small Bitcoin sale by Strategy, the largest listed holder of Bitcoin. Strategy disclosed in a filing submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it sold 32 BTC at an average price of $77,135 from May 26 to 31. The roughly $2.5 million raised is set to be used to pay preferred stock dividends. After the sale, Strategy held about 843,706 BTC, meaning it disposed of about 0.0038 percent of its total holdings.

Kendrick assessed that the size of the sale itself was not enough to affect the market. He said, "Selling 32 BTC is laughably small," but added, "What matters is how the market takes it."

After the sale became known, the ETH/BTC ratio posted one of its biggest rises this year during a phase of Bitcoin weakness. Ethereum then rose about another 5 percent against Bitcoin, the analysis showed.

Standard Chartered raised its year-end ETH/BTC target ratio to 0.040 from the current level of about 0.028. That means that if Bitcoin and Ethereum move in the same direction, Ethereum could post returns more than about 40 percent higher than Bitcoin.

It cited differences in the profit structure of treasury companies as the backdrop. Companies that stockpile Bitcoin cannot generate cash flow from the assets themselves, so they inevitably rely on selling assets or external funding to pay costs or repay debt. By contrast, Ethereum currently provides staking returns of about 3 percent a year, allowing holders to secure a certain level of cash flow without selling their assets, Kendrick said.

As a real-world example, the report pointed to BitMine, an Ethereum-focused investment company led by Tom Lee. BitMine has built an ETH position worth about $10 billion without borrowing and is estimated to generate about $258 million in annual income through its own staking platform. Kendrick also analysed that additional reward income of about $300 million a year is expected in the future.

In the market valuation metric known as the multiple of net asset value, or mNAV, Bitcoin treasury companies still hold an advantage. The mNAV of major Ethereum treasury companies such as BitMine and SharpLink is currently lower than Strategy's.

Kendrick forecast that if the market begins to re-evaluate the recurring income structure from staking, valuations of Ethereum-based companies could surpass those of Bitcoin treasury companies. He stressed, "Even if Strategy buys back far more Bitcoin than it sold this time, the long-term view does not change."

He also maintained a long-term outlook for Ethereum. In a recent report, Kendrick compared today's Ethereum to Amazon after the collapse of the 2001 dot-com bubble, saying price performance is weak but network fundamentals are steadily improving. Standard Chartered sets an Ethereum price target of $4,000 for the end of 2026 and $40,000 for the end of 2030.

In the industry, the report is seen as focusing more on differences in business models between Bitcoin- and Ethereum-based treasury companies than on a simple price forecast. Another analysis said the structural differences between Ethereum, which can generate staking income, and Bitcoin, which lacks cash flow, could influence the criteria used by institutional investors in future evaluations.