In brief
- Ethereum touched $3,418 this week, marking its highest level since February.
- SharpLink and BitMine have collectively accumulated over $1.3 billion in Ethereum.
- Ethereum held on centralized exchanges has dropped 34% year-to-date, per Santiment
Ethereum’s rally in recent months could lead to a new all-time high this year, analysts say, as its fundamentals begin to firm and sentiment shifts.
On Wednesday, Ethereum reached a five-month high of $3,418. The asset has since dipped but remains elevated, with 24-hour gains exceeding 7%, according to CoinGecko data.
The spike coincides with accelerated institutional accumulation, including from the likes of SharpLink Gaming, whose holdings are nearing $828 million, following a $225 million purchase in July, according to DeFiLlama data.
Similarly, Bitcoin mining company BitMine Immersion Technologies raised $250 million in June and has since acquired over $500 million worth of Ethereum.
“Ethereum’s current setup is one of the strongest in years,” a spokesperson for Elfa AI, a real-time social and on-chain behavior tracking platform, told Decrypt. “Fundamentals, sentiment, and institutional flows all point in the same bullish direction.”
Ethereum has gained sharply against Bitcoin in recent weeks, with the ratio between the two rising 20% in just two weeks—a sign that investors are rotating into Ethereum after months of underperformance.
Charles Edwards, Founder of Capriole Fund, told Decrypt that he expects a new all-time high within “six to 12 months.”
Edwards attributed the outlook to “strong growth” and a shift in how market participants previously viewed the number two crypto.
The asset’s recent 62% rally in less than a month adds “confluence,” Edwards said, especially considering “how hated Ethereum was across the crypto space over the last six months.”
Meanwhile, the Ethereum supply held on centralized exchanges has decreased significantly since the start of the year, from 11 million ETH to 7.22 million, according to Santiment data.
That’s typically interpreted as a sign that traders are instead hoarding their coins, usually in cold storage, rather than maintaining them on centralized platforms for active trading.
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