The demand for Ethereum has registered a sharp uptick in the past few weeks as Bitcoin price experiences diminishing returns after hitting $100K.
Amid the ongoing altcoin season, Ethereum ETH $1 798 24h volatility: 1.7% Market cap: $217.05 B Vol. 24h: $12.61 B price has confirmed the onset of its macro parabolic rally. The large-cap altcoin, with a fully diluted valuation of about $465 billion, rallied more than 30% in the last three weeks to reach a major milestone of about $4K. As a result, Ether’s price, against the USD, registered the highest weekly close since December 2021, signaling the bulls are in control.
From a technical analysis standpoint, Ether price is now ready to rally toward its all-time high (ATH) of near $5K. Furthermore, the altcoin closed last week above a macro falling logarithmic trend for the first time since the onset of the 2022 crypto bear market.
However, a midterm correction to retest the recent bullish breakout could send Ether price toward the support level of around $3,724 before continuing with the rising trend. Moreover, the heightened crypto liquidations, amid heated futures open interest (OI), could lead to short-term correction to cool down the industry from increased FOMO traders.
$4k #Ethereum weekly close is a clear signal for the breakout of the massive cup and handle formation (that began since Nov 2021):
Next $ETH price targets:
$4,900 (previous ATH resistance)
$5,349 (easy target the cup and handle)
$6,457 (medium)
$7,238 (bullish)Timeframe: by… pic.twitter.com/y0vXI4KF0E
— venturefounder (@venturefounder) December 8, 2024
Ethereum Whales Scrumbles for More Assets
According to on-chain data analysis by Coinglass, the overall supply of Ether on centralized exchanges has declined by more than 363K in the past seven days to hover about 15 million. The net circulating supply of Ether has been dropping as more investors get involved in the staking program to secure the network.
As of this writing, the Ethereum network has more than 100k validators that have staked over 34.3 million Ether units. With more than 4.7 million Ether already burned to date since the implementation of the EIP-1559, more whale investors have accelerated the overall accumulation pace.
For instance, the US spot Ether ETFs have purchased ETH worth more than $1.3 billion in the past two weeks. In the first week of December, BlackRock’s ETHA led other spot ETH ETF issuers in accumulating more than $836 million, the highest amount since the historic approval earlier this year.
Factors Influencing Whales’ Accumulation of Ether
The rising adoption of ETH by institutional investors is heavily influenced by the ongoing altseason. With the Ethereum network leading in web3 development, more investors have been betting on more upside trends.
Furthermore, the Ethereum network has the highest total value locked (TVL) of about $77 billion and a stablecoins market cap of more than $106 billion. The Ethereum core developers, led by co-founder Vitalik Buterin, have continued to enhance the network to ensure long-term competitiveness.
For instance, the next major Ethereum upgrade dubbed Pectra, which will likely happen by the first quarter of 2025, will let network users pay gas fees with different tokens to enhance the mainstream adoption of the smart contracts.
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