Ethereum Hits All-Time High Price After Nearly 4 Years

Ethereum hit a new all-time high price on Friday, breaking a nearly four-year record following recent gains fueled by surging ETH treasuries, an increasingly favorable regulatory environment for the protocol, and growing interest from traditional finance firms.

The second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap is up 15% over the past 24 hours to $4,879, surpassing its previous record of $4,878 set in November 2021, data from CoinGecko shows.

ETH has more than doubled in price over the last two months to outpace even Bitcoin as investors flood into the exchange-traded funds. After coming close to a new record on August 14, the price of ETH dipped alongside the rest of the market, dropping to under $4,100 earlier this week.

But on Friday, crypto prices broadly surged following Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s comments, which appeared to suggest potential for an interest rate cut ahead. Ethereum jumped by nearly 8% in an hour after the comments, and continued to tick up afterwards.

“It’s finally ETH’s moment to shine: record ETH ETF inflows and the launch of large ETH digital asset treasuries, coupled with broader ecosystem success—Circle and Bullish IPOs, and Trump’s executive order allowing digital assets in 401(k)s,” Brian Huang, co-founder of on-chain automation platform Glider, wrote in an email to Decrypt. “Jerome Powell’s dovish speech today hinting at rate cuts was the final push ETH needed.”

Huang added: “Sentiment in the trenches for ETH is strong as well. Layer-2s like Base continue to grow, and ETH still bodes the most DeFi liquidity by a factor of 9x above the second, Solana. We’re still in the early innings here for ETH, the world’s global settlement layer.”

The recent Ethereum boom has been fueled in part by growing ETF demand. Last week, U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs collected over $1 billion in inflows in a single day for the first time since they started trading in July 2024. And Ethereum funds have been outpacing Bitcoin ETFs with gains, though conversely, they’ve also bled out faster on down days.

The gains have dovetailed with rise of companies that have gobbled up Ethereum as their primary mission. In recent weeks, Bitcoin miner BitMine Immersion has grown its holdings to more than $7 billion, while SharpLink Gaming, which pivoted from online marketing, has accumulated more than $3.5 billion worth of the coin.

Such companies are following in the footsteps of Bitcoin treasury company Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), which started buying the largest cryptocurrency by market cap in 2020 to pump its stock. The move has inspired dozens of followers, who have started expanding into other assets like Ethereum, Solana, and BNB.

“There are a lot of tailwinds behind ETH at moment,” said Strahinja Savic, head of data and analytics at crypto-focused financial services and advisory firm, FRNT Financial. “Record ETH ETF inflows and aggressive buying from treasury companies are offering tangible demand.”

“On top of this, Ethereum is at the center of several key themes that are garnering the attention of traditional financial institutions,” he continued. “These include tokenization of traditional assets and stablecoins. These are major economic themes, and Ethereum is emerging as a strong candidate to host this new influx of capital and interest.”

Ethereum also received a boost this month when the SEC clarified its guidance on staking, as Ethereum users have long sought from the securities regulator.

Former President Joe Biden administration’s more restrictive policies had resisted allowing this feature, but under President Donald Trump, the regulator said that liquid staking services can pay out staking rewards to customers without registering with the agency.

Last month’s passage of the GENIUS Act also boosted Ethereum’s prospects. The legislation provides a U.S. regulatory framework for issuing stablecoins. Developers of these projects overwhelmingly use the Ethereum blockchain for their projects. Most stablecoins are pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar.

“Ethereum’s new all-time high is a clear sign of investor demand beyond just Bitcoin,” Samir Kerbage, chief investment officer at crypto asset manager Hashdex, wrote in a message to Decrypt. “As Ethereum and other smart contract platforms provide the infrastructure for many of crypto’s most mature use cases, including stablecoins and tokenization, we anticipate continued strong demand for this emerging asset class.”

The odds that Ethereum climbs past $5,000 this year have jumped in the past day on Myriad Markets. The prediction market now shows a roughly 85% probability that the token will reach that threshold in 2025.

(Disclosure: Myriad is a prediction market and engagement platform developed by Dastan, parent company of an editorially independent Decrypt.)

In a note last week, U.K. bank Standard Chartered raised its Ethereum price target to $25,000 by 2028, a major shift from March forecasts that predicted a structural decline for the world’s second-largest crypto.

“We raise our price forecasts, as the backdrop for ETH has improved dramatically in recent months,” the bank’s Global Head of Digital Assets Research, Geoff Kendrick, wrote.

Editor’s note: This story was updated after publication to include additional comments.