Tom Lee has reiterated one of the most aggressive Ethereum targets in the market, telling attendees at Binance Blockchain Week on 4 December that ETH could eventually trade at $62,000 as it becomes the core infrastructure for tokenized finance.

“Okay, so let me explain to you why Ethereum, now that we’ve talked about crypto, […] is the future of finance,” Lee said on stage. He framed 2025 as Ethereum’s “1971 moment,” drawing a direct analogy to when the US dollar left the gold standard and triggered a wave of financial innovation.

Lee’s Thesis For Ethereum

“In 1971, the dollar went off the gold standard. And in 1971, it galvanized Wall Street to create financial products to make sure the dollar would be the reserve currency,” Lee argued. “Well, in 2025, we’re tokenizing everything. So it’s not just the dollar that’s getting tokenized, but it’s stocks, bonds, real estate.”

In his view, this shift positions ETH as the primary settlement and execution layer for tokenized assets. “Wall Street is, again, going to take advantage of that and create products onto a smart contract platform. And where they’re building this is on Ethereum,” he said. Lee pointed to current real-world asset experiments as early evidence, noting that “the majority of this, the vast majority, is being built on Ethereum,” and adding that “Ethereum has won the smart contract war.”

Lee also stressed that ETH’s market behavior has not yet reflected that structural role. “As you know, ETH has been range bound for five years, as I’ve shaded here. But it’s begun to break out,” he told the audience, explaining why he “got very involved with Ethereum by turning Bitmine into an ETH treasury company, because we saw this breakout coming.”

The core of his valuation case is expressed through the ETH/BTC ratio. Lee expects Bitcoin to move sharply higher in the near term: “I think Bitcoin is going to get to $250,000 within a few months.” From there, he derives two key ETH scenarios.

First, if the ETH/BTC price relationship simply reverts to its historical mean, he sees substantial upside. “If ETH price ratio to Bitcoin gets back to its eight year average, that’s $12,000 for Ethereum,” he said. Second, in a more aggressive case where ETH appreciates to a quarter of Bitcoin’s price, his long-standing $62,000 target emerges: “If it gets to 0.25 relative to Bitcoin, that’s $62,000.”

TOM LEE CALLS FOR $62,000 $ETH

“I think Ethereum’s going to become the future of finance, the payment rails of the future and if it gets to .25 relative to Bitcoin that’s $62,000. Ethereum at $3,000 is grossly undervalued.” pic.twitter.com/VydvLou9IE

— CryptosRus (@CryptosR_Us) December 4, 2025

Lee links these ratios directly to the tokenization narrative. “If 2026 is about tokenization, that means Ether’s utility value should be rising. Therefore, you should watch this ratio,” he told the crowd, arguing that valuation should track growing demand for ETH blockspace and its role as “the payment rails of the future.”

He concluded with a pointed assessment of current levels: “I think Ethereum at $3,000, of course, is grossly undervalued.”

At press time, ETH traded at $3,128.

Ethereum is approaching a critical moment as multiple bullish signals begin to align. A clear Inverse Head & Shoulders formation, combined with rising accumulation and weakening trend rejection, suggests that the market may be gearing up for a powerful upside move. With momentum tightening and key levels coming into focus, ETH now stands on the verge of a breakout that could set the stage for its next major rally.

Inverse Head And Shoulders Signals Brewing Momentum

According to a recent update shared by crypto analyst Donald Dean, Ethereum may be gearing up for a significant move. He highlighted the development of a potential inverse head and shoulders pattern, a classic bullish reversal formation that often precedes strong upward momentum. This emerging structure suggests that ETH could soon shift into a more aggressive bullish phase if confirmed.

Dean also pointed out that the weekly chart is showing solid support near the 50% Fibonacci retracement level, positioned around $2,750. Adding to the bullish signals, a hammer candle has appeared on the weekly timeframe, hinting at buying pressure stepping back in after recent downside movement.

If the pattern plays out, Dean noted that Ethereum’s first major target lies at $4,109, a level that would allow ETH to challenge previous resistance/support zones. Reclaiming this region would mark a meaningful shift in momentum and strengthen the bullish outlook for the asset.

Beyond that, the next upside target sits near $5,766, which aligns closely with the 1.618 Golden Ratio extension calculated at approximately $5,793.51. Dean described this confluence as particularly noteworthy, suggesting that if Ethereum breaks above its nearer targets, a larger rally toward this golden-ratio level becomes a realistic possibility.

Growing Accumulation Suggests Bulls Are Preparing For Action

In an earlier analysis, LSTRADER reminded followers of the impressive move from $1,600 to $4,800, noting that this surge had been identified in advance through both the ETH chart and the ETH/BTC setup. The analysis captured the momentum shift that preceded the rally, reinforcing the value of tracking key structural signals.

In the current market structure, LSTRADER noted that the chart clearly shows multiple instances where the trend faced rejection. Despite these rejections, the trend is steadily losing strength while accumulation continues to build, a combination that typically reflects growing bullish interest and the potential for an upward breakout.

However, LSTRADER stressed that no major move should be assumed until the trendline itself is broken, and confirmation is still required. For now, patience is key as traders continue monitoring the structure and waiting for a decisive shift in trend direction.

Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade is now live on mainnet, marking a major structural change in how the network handles data and scaling. The upgrade was activated at epoch 411392 at 21:49:11 UTC, with the official Ethereum account first signalling “upgrade in progress . . . activating Fusaka @ epoch 411392 // 21:49:11 UTC” and then confirming that “Fusaka is live on Ethereum mainnet!”

In its announcement, the account highlighted three core elements of Fusaka. PeerDAS “now unlocks 8x data throughput for rollups,” substantially expanding the amount of data that rollup-based layer 2 networks can publish to the network. The upgrade also introduces “UX improvements via the R1 curve & pre-confirmations,” and is described as explicit “prep for scaling the L1 with gas limit increase & more.” The project added that community members and core developers will “continue to monitor for issues over the next 24 hrs.”

Why Fusaka Is ‘Significant’ For Ethereum

Vitalik Buterin framed the core of the upgrade in unusually direct terms. “PeerDAS in Fusaka is significant because it literally is sharding,” he wrote. “Ethereum is coming to consensus on blocks without requiring any single node to see more than a tiny fraction of the data. And this is robust to 51% attacks – it’s client-side probabilistic verification, not validator voting.” In other words, the network can now agree on blocks even though no node has to download all of the associated data, relying instead on probabilistic verification on the client side.

Buterin tied this to a long-running research line, noting that “sharding has been a dream for Ethereum since 2015, and data availability sampling since 2017,” and linking back to early research work on data availability and erasure coding. With Fusaka, that architecture is no longer just a roadmap concept but a live mechanism securing Ethereum’s data layer.

At the same time, Buterin was clear that Fusaka does not complete the sharding roadmap. He stressed that “there are three ways that the sharding in Fusaka is incomplete.” First, he argued that “we can process O(c^2) transactions (where c is the per-node compute) on L2s, but not on the ethereum L1,” adding that “if we want to scaling to benefit the ethereum L1 as well, beyond what we can get by constant-factor upgrades like BAL and ePBS, we need mature ZK-EVMs.”

Second, he pointed to the “proposer/builder bottleneck,” where “the builder needs to have the whole data and build the whole block,” and said “it would be amazing to have distributed block building.” Third, he noted bluntly: “We don’t have a sharded mempool. We still need that.”

Despite those caveats, Buterin called Fusaka “a fundamental step forward in blockchain design.” He argued that “the next two years will give us time to refine the PeerDAS mechanism, carefully increase its scale while we continue to ensure its stability, use it to scale L2s, and then when ZK-EVMs are mature, turn it inwards to scale ethereum L1 gas as well.”

He closed by sending “big congrats to the Ethereum researchers and core devs who worked hard for years to make this happen,” underscoring that for the Ethereum community, Fusaka is not a routine protocol update but the arrival of a long-promised sharding era on mainnet.

At press time, ETH traded at $3,194.

Over the past few weeks, the price of Ethereum has been on a downward trend due to a highly volatile market environment. ETH’s bearish action appears to have hampered on-chain activities, as evidenced by a decline in its total transactions carried out within a monthly period.

A Quiet Month For The Ethereum Network

Ethereum’s on-chain activity appears to have slowed down alongside the ongoing decline of ETH’s price. The blockchain, which is typically bustling with contract calls, exchanges, and transfers, now feels a little more roomy, suggesting a cooling pulse beneath the surface.

After examining the Transactions on the Ethereum Network metric in the monthly time frame, Everstake.eth, a market analyst and the head of the ETH segment at Everstake, revealed that the blockchain has recorded its worst month of the year. While price has declined, ETH’s total transactions executed in a month, particularly November, experienced a cool-off.

According to the data, the overall number of transactions carried out on the Ethereum network in November alone was approximately 32.2 million. Although this figure may seem large, it actually marks the lowest monthly count in the past 12 months.

Such a drop in transactions may suggest the renewed waning appetite for the network. In addition to suggesting a retreat, this delay reads more like a collective pause as users catch their breath, procedures recalibrating, and the market adjusting to its new rhythm. 

Everstake.eth highlighted that this kind of cooldown usually occurs when the market moves into a wait-and-see phase. During this phase, capital is observed sitting on the sidelines while developers continue to build on the blockchain. Despite this trend, the network still records more than 33 million transactions in a quiet month, which reflects its robust strength.

At a time like this, the expert noted that user behavior typically follows the market sentiment. As seen in the past, on-chain activity tends to cool down when volatility drops. However, Ethereum still retains the status as the most reliable network even during slow phases.

With the Fusaka Upgrade set to hit the market, Everstake.eth predicts that ETH transactions will see explosive growth. “If this is the worst month, imagine what the best will look like after Fusaka rolls out. It will be huge,” the expert stated.

ETH Active Transactions Pick Up

The monthly transactions may have slowed down, but the active addresses on the Ethereum network are heating up again. Leon Waidmann, the head of research at On-Chain Foundation, reported that active addresses throughout the entire ecosystem, Layer 1 and Layer 2s, bounced back above 9.5 million this week.

This surge points to a quiet resurgence of interest, utility, or a group readiness for the future. Waidmann highlighted that this marks the first meaningful reversal after several weeks of downside action.

ETH layer 2s such as Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, and World Chain have witnessed a strong rebound following a period of decline. Furthermore, multi-chain activity is starting to stabilize after the drop in Q3. These factors are painting a bullish picture for the network and its price prospects.

The crypto market delivered a dramatic rebound this week, with the Bitcoin price vaulting above $92,000 and Ethereum climbing back over $3,000. The sharp recovery in both leading cryptocurrencies has caught the market’s attention, with analysts now sharing the major reason for the unexpected pump. 

Why The Ethereum And Bitcoin Price Are Rebounding

Bitcoin is currently trading above $93,000 after experiencing a period of accelerated selling and heavy long liquidations that had briefly pushed its price down over the past few weeks. Now that forced selling has eased, the cryptocurrency has recovered significantly, adding an astonishing $75 billion to its market capitalization within 10 hours. 

Ethereum has followed the same upward swing. Data from CoinMarketCap shows that ETH has gained more than 9% in the past 24 hours, with steady accumulation pushing its price above $3,050. 

Crypto market analyst Wimar.X has explained the reason behind the sudden surge in both Bitcoin and Ethereum prices. He framed the resurgence as a rapid wave of high-volume coordinated institutional buying. In his words, the market pumped because a massive round of accumulation occurred within a single hour. 

Data from Arkham Intelligence shows that Wintermute, a leading algorithmic trading firm, had bought 8,577 BTC ahead of the market surge. Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, also acquired 7,658 BTC, while a major whale wallet added 6,010 BTC to its portfolio. Finally, BitMEX, a crypto exchange co-founded by Arthur Hayes, reportedly accumulated 5,818 BTC, while Bitfinex absorbed 5,778 BTC. 

According to Wimar.X analysis, the sudden accumulation and its timing appear coordinated. He described the activity as manipulation, implying that it was intended to influence market perception and artificially sway prices. 

Analysts Share Outlook For Bitcoin And Ethereum Price After Pump

As the crypto market showed renewed strength and BTC recovered above $90,000, crypto expert Michael van de Poppe took to X to highlight the significance of the rebound. He noted that the recent dip in Bitcoin’s price at the start of the month appeared unusual but was followed by a strong bounce. According to the analyst, surpassing $92,000 will be critical for Bitcoin and could pave the way for a new all-time high and a potential test of $100,000. 

On the other hand, a market analyst identified as ‘More Crypto Online’ on X has stated that Ethereum is currently testing the micro support zone between $2,907 and $2,974. He noted that holding this support area is crucial for sustaining the upward momentum that began earlier this week.

As a result, the analyst has predicted that Ethereum’s next upside window sits between $3,165 and $3,210. He cautioned that a breach below the lower support level could trigger a deeper corrective wave. However, current trends suggest that ETH is mainly aiming higher. 

The prices of Ethereum and Dogecoin have followed a similar trajectory to the Bitcoin price crash as the pioneer digital asset continues to lead the crypto market lower. The muted action from Bitcoin has led to speculations that the market is finally headed into another bear trend after rising over the last few years. In this same vein, a crypto analyst has predicted when they believe that the bear market will really start, and that the current trend could still lead to an eventual pump in the market.

Why The Bitcoin, Ethereum, And Dogecoin Prices Could Still Pump

Crypto analyst ChainShinobi explained what is going on in the market, predicting that the trend could end up going against what investors are expecting at this time. According to the X post, while everyone is currently calling for lower prices, it could lead to another pump that culminates in the final top for the crypto market

ChainShinobi predicts what they refer to as “a face-melter”, the type of rally that no one sees coming and takes the likes of Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and Ethereum to possibly new all-time highs. However, instead of using this time to call for higher prices, the analyst believes that it is the best time for investors to actually get out of the market. This pump, which the analyst refers to as an exit window, could provide investors one final chance to actually get out of the market before another price crash.

This is “The moment to lock in massive profit while everyone else is busy blinding themselves with hopium and pushing their targets higher and higher… the same way they dragged their targets lower and lower right now,” the crypto analyst said.

The Same Wave Every Cycle

As for when the Dogecoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin prices could move into the next bear market, the crypto analyst tells investors not to expect it until next year. More precisely, ChainShinobi believes that the bear market will fully begin by the end of the first quarter of 2025.

When the pump comes, the analyst warns that there could be an influx of bullish sentiment, with bullish news flooding the market. But it is during this time that the market is expected to turn. Essentially, the bear market is expected to begin when investors least expect it. “It’s pretty easy to see what’s coming. You don’t need to overdo TA or PA right now to see the path laid out,” the post read.

The leading Ethereum network is witnessing serious engagement even as its price struggles to undergo a major surge. After a massive wave of both new and old investors, the ETH mainnet utilization has increased drastically, reaching levels of adoption not seen since its inception.

Historic Lift-Off For Ethereum Mainnet Utilization

Ethereum is undergoing a shift in network adoption. In a significant landmark that cements its dominance, the Ethereum Maninnet usage has increased to the point where it feels more like a structural awakening than regular growth. 

Leon Waidmann, the founder of On-Chain Foundation and market expert, reported that the ETH mainnet’s utilization is currently at an all-time high. This kind of spike in network traffic may indicate the return of activity from the periphery to the center of the chain, new applications, or even a resurgence of trust in the network’s long-term prospects.

Data shared by the market expert shows the network’s usage in the past 30 days rose to 1.97mags/s, marking its highest level in history. The chart reveals that the rise to a new peak represents a more than 57% increase in Year-Over-Year (YoY), indicating that ETH is moving with intent once again.

While weak network effects and parasitic Layer 2s are being debated within the community, Waidmann highlighted that the Ethereum Mainnet continues to display strong growth and strength. This robust growth is evidenced by the increase in activity, spiking gas fees, and the surge in the number of ETH being burned.

By combining these key factors about the network, Waidmann claims that ETH could attract more economic load. As a result, the leading altcoin may gradually shed its old skin and take on a more rigid financial function.

Waidmann has declared that ETH could become harder money and a settlement collateral. As a result, ETH is starting to resemble the foundation of a future financial structure rather than just a utility token.

ETH Layer 2s Dominates Network’s Transactions

In the midst of surging network activity and adoption, Ethereum layer 2s are now dominating in terms of transactions at a speed that makes the base layer feel nearly slow in contrast. While the center might still hold, the edges are undeniably where users’ action currently resides.

Last week, Waidmann noted that the total Transaction Per Second (TPS) across the Ethereum network reached over 358.21. Meanwhile, a more significant portion of these transactions was carried out on layer 2 networks. According to the data shared by the on-chain Foundation founder, layer 2s controlled over 95.2% of the overall throughput. 

Such a development implies that execution has largely moved to the layer 2 chains. A major reason for this might be that users, liquidity, and developers are looking for quicker and less expensive channels to carry out transactions, transforming ETH’s scaling stack into the ecosystem’s actual heartbeat.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of digital finance, Ethereum is quickly establishing itself as the primary infrastructure for global on-chain capital markets. From tokenized bonds and money market funds to institutional liquidity rails, the world’s capital is beginning to migrate to an ecosystem where transactions are programmable, auditable, and borderless.

Why Is Ethereum Chosen As The Default Choice For Global Rails

The global capital markets are moving on-chain to Ethereum because it is credibly neutral. ETH has never experienced downtime, and it possesses the economic security necessary to support the world’s financial system. Investor and founder of GM42NFT, Captain GM, has stated that ETH is not fast enough to support trading because it wasn’t built for it.

However, the attempts to build a genuinely fast on-chain trading environment have consistently led teams to centralize significant parts of the trading system. This move creates security, reliability, and neutrality concerns for a system designed to be global. These compromises are in direct conflict with the very benefits that ETH provides, and make it the chosen blockchain for global finance.

This is where Raya Network steps in to solve these issues at the core. Raya is delivering a decentralized exchange (DEX) with institutional-grade execution speed and Ethereum-level security. It’s a platform that is as fast as TradFi and remains simultaneously secure, reliable, and credibly neutral as exactly DeFi should be. “Fast is easy, decentralized is hard, and it’s only Reya that does both,” Captain GM noted.

Analyst Alucard mentioned that the Raya network has become one of the few projects that genuinely solves the speed and security problem. The sub-millisecond execution speeds, trades are fully verified on ETH, and there’s no dependence on a single sequencer. This is an engineered combination designed for real progress in the space.

However, over 45% of the token supply is allocated to the community. Reya, combined with the ETH buyback mechanism, creates an ecosystem that’s aligned both technically and economically. They’re building something fast and secure, and because of that, Reya sits in a different category.

Why Reya’s Design Feels More Like A New Standard Than Another DEX

A trader and ambassador of Somnia, Onur, has also explained that his experience with Reya feels like a full redesign of on-chain execution rather than a small improvement. It offers sub-millisecond fills, unified margin, Ethereum security with ZK settlement, and smooth flow through EigenDA.

According to Onur, the peer-to-pool model keeps trades consistent, efficient, and free from bottlenecks or hidden edges. As a result of this approach, Reya isn’t just another venue anymore, and it’s actively becoming the new execution standard for DeFi.

A pseudonymous analyst has set off a new narrative around Ethereum’s upcoming Fusaka upgrade, arguing it could be the most favorable event ever for ETH as an asset by finally turning Layer-2 networks into meaningful ETH burners.

On X, crypto pundit Kira Sama framed Fusaka, scheduled for December 3, as a structural shift in Ethereum’s fee economics. The core of the thesis is a single change: EIP-7918.

“Price wise, Ethereum Fusaka upgrade on december 3rd, will be the most bullish upgrade for eth the asset ever, why? One reason. ‘EIP 7918’,” Kira wrote, calling it “the next big catalyst for eth burn.”

Ethereum L2 Will Burn ETH

Kira’s argument rests on how Ethereum currently treats L2s. Since the rollup-centric roadmap took shape, Ethereum’s base layer has effectively subsidized L2 data availability. In his words, “for a long time, ETH L1 charged zero base fees to L2s, while L2 deployers made millions of profits. So L2s haven’t burnt any meaningful eth.” That subsidized regime has fueled explosive L2 growth but also limited how much L2 usage translates into ETH burn.

EIP-7918 is designed to change that by tying L2 data costs more tightly to mainnet gas prices. Kira summarizes it as follows: “L2 fees will be bounded by the execution cost which will help us reach L2 fees price discovery faster. It also helps maintain the fees during spikes so that L2 users won’t be rugged from absurd tx fees. Win-win.” In practice, that means rollups will face a non-trivial, protocol-enforced minimum on what they pay Ethereum for posting their batches.

Crucially for ETH holders, those fees are paid in ETH and a portion is burned under the EIP-1559 mechanism. Kira argues that as L2 throughput scales, this will become a dominant driver of ETH’s burn dynamics: “They will just pay their fair share to Ethereum L1 and burn meaningful eth. It will be slow and steady at the beginning. This will eventually result in burning millions of dollars of eth long term and L2s will be main driving force of making eth deflationary.”

The narrative becomes more aggressive when Kira extrapolates to corporate and institutional rollups. He lists a series of existing and anticipated L2s and claims that “Coinbase’s base will burn eth, Robinhood’s L2 will burn eth, OpenAI’s Worlchain will burn eth, Sony’s Soneium will burn eth, Alibaba’s Jovay will burn eth, UAE’s ADI chain burn eth, Kraken’s Ink will burn eth, Lighter will burn eth, Deutsche Bank’s Memento chain will burn eth, Arbitrum will burn eth etc etc etc. Corporations will start burning eth.”

From that, he extends the thesis to a broader, highly bullish vision: “Every company in the world will launch their own layer 2. Every alt-L1 will become L2 and start burning eth. Eth inflation will shrink.” While those universal claims go far beyond what the upgrade itself guarantees, they capture the heart of the bullish narrative: if enough economic activity migrates onto Ethereum-secured L2s that must pay non-negligible base fees, Ethereum becomes the settlement and value-capture layer beneath corporate and institutional chains.

Kira explicitly compares Fusaka to the London hard fork that introduced EIP-1559 in 2021. “When Ethereum introduced burn through eip-1559 in 2021, it lifted the whole market up,” he wrote. “Everyone will be caught off guard this time as well. L2s burning eth incoming. Bullish eth. Bullish L2s.” For now, Kira is clear about his own conclusion: “December 3rd, tik-tok. The ticker is ETH.”

At press time, ETH traded at $3,022.

Ethereum’s price is displaying signs of bullish momentum once again as the leading altcoin reclaims the $3,000 mark following a rebound across the broader cryptocurrency market. While the price has picked up pace, the ETH derivatives market is heating up, with futures demand rising sharply compared to the spot market.

Futures Appetite Surges Ahead Of Spot Buying

With the price of Ethereum displaying renewed upward strength, the altcoin appears to be changing its tempo, and this change is not coming from where most traders typically look. A recent report from CryptoQuant, a leading on-chain data analytics platform, has revealed a notable divergence between the futures and spot markets.

In the quick-take post, market expert and author with the pseudonym Crazzyblockk highlighted that the futures markets have accelerated significantly while spot activity continues to lag behind. Simply put, demand for futures is surging ahead of spot buying, indicating a shift among ETH investors or traders.

When this key trend emerges, it often serves as an early tremor that frequently precedes more significant developments in Ethereum’s narrative. It suggests that individuals betting on tomorrow may write the next chapter of ETH price action instead of accumulating today.

Over the last several days, ETH’s futures-to-spot ratio has steadily moved higher from the mid-5 range to nearly 6.9 on the most recent reading. Crazzyblockk stated that the rising multiple shows there is a fast increase in speculative interest around Ethereum than spot market participation. What this means is that traders positioning through leveraged markets are expanding rather than acquiring through spot.

In comparison to other major digital assets in the dataset, ETH currently holds the most robust futures demand relative to its spot volume. While Bitcoin and Solana maintain stable ratios in the 3.5–4.5 zone, the altcoin remains the leader and is widening the gap. 

ETH Traders Are Choosing Directional Exposure

The divergence points to an environment where traders are opting for directional exposure in ETH more aggressively than in other large assets. Meanwhile, the increase in futures participation could be a sign of impending catalysts or growing expectations for volatility unique to the Ethereum ecosystem.

According to the market expert, the consistency of this upward trajectory is important to the market. When market players expect greater short-term price movement, a rising futures multiple usually arises. Currently, the data indicates that Ethereum traders are sharply positioning ahead of potential trend acceleration.

However, whether this development leads to a persistent upward momentum or short-term volatility, the path remains clear. The behavior reflects heightened conviction and a noticeable change in Ethereum’s trading dynamics toward those driven by derivatives.

At the time of writing, the ETH price was trading at $3,007, demonstrating a 0.73% decline in the last 24 hours. Its trading volume has sharply dropped in the past day by more than 33%, indicating waning sentiment among ETH investors.

Ethereum has struggled greatly during the last few weeks, losing the psychological $3,000 level and triggering what many believe to be the start of another bear run. During this time, sentiment has taken an even bigger hit, plunging so far into the negative territory that it’s sitting at levels not seen in years. Naturally, this negative sentiment has triggered fear among investors, but this period of extreme wariness could serve as an opportunity to scoop up the altcoin at low prices.

Fear Could Be Presenting An Opportunity

With the Ethereum price still trending low, crypto analyst Sporia believes that this could be a good time for the price to bounce. Firstly, the analyst points to the fact that crypto market sentiment has not been bad since the COVID crash of 2020. Interestingly, though, the Bitcoin price had been below $10,000 back in 2020, and now, it’s trending between $80,000-$100,000, and this sentiment is this low.

With the Fear & Greed Index hitting new yearly lows and falling into Extreme Fear, everything may look bleak. However, Sporia opines that this could be a time for opportunity, especially for meme coins like Ethereum. The price has already seen a major crash, sending it below $2,700, but there are still factors that show this might be a good opportunity.

For one, the crypto analyst pointed out that the Ethereum price has just finished Wave 2 of its Elliot Wave Count. This means that the altcoin is now headed into Wave 3, a bigger bullish trend than the Wave 1 that sent its price above $4,900 earlier.

With Wave 3 yet to begin, the analyst believes that the Ethereum price has not hit its peak. Rather, this is more of a stopgap, and the real move is coming. Sporia expects ETH to cross the 5-digit threshold, predicting 2026 to be a very bullish year.

How High Can The Ethereum Price Go In 2026?

By the time the third wave is completed, Sporia expects that the Ethereum price will have climbed as high as $11,000. This bullish run is expected to end sometime in May 2026, leading to the next wave. Wave 4 is a bearish wave and the analyst expects Ethereum to crash ~50% as a result. However, this crash is expected to be only temporary.

The final and most bullish wave of all, Wave 5, will follow after the Ethereum price finds its bottom with the ~50% crash. Once established, this wave will push the price toward new peaks, with the low-end target placed at $18,000 and the high-end at $25,000.

As for the timeline for this, the crypto analyst predicts that all of this will play out by the last quarter of 2026, or into the first quarter of 2027. “No breakout yet, but notice the deep pullbacks it always has right before the eventual clean break higher. We’re following the exact same script,” Sporia said.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has quietly redirected part of his growing on-chain privacy activity toward the encrypted-messaging space, donating a total of 256 ETH to SimpleX Chat and Session via the Railgun privacy protocol.

Onchain analytics firm Arkham first flagged the move, noting “VITALIK JUST SENT $2.9M $ETH TO RAILGUN. Vitalik holds over $700 MILLION of ETH, and just sent $2.9M into Railgun. What is he cooking?”

VITALIK JUST SENT $2.9M $ETH TO RAILGUN

Vitalik holds over $700 MILLION of ETH, and just sent $2.9M into Railgun.

What is he cooking? pic.twitter.com/2HvDFRDqi2

— Arkham (@arkham) November 26, 2025

Buterin Backs SimpleX And Session

Shortly after, Buterin confirmed the donations from his vitalik.eth account and framed them explicitly as a bet on the next frontier of privacy: permissionless and metadata-hardened messaging. “Encrypted messaging, like @signalapp, is critical for preserving our digital privacy,” he wrote. “Two important next steps for the space are (i) permissionless account creation and (ii) metadata privacy.” He then named Session and SimpleX as “two messaging apps pushing these directions forward.”

Buterin specified that he had “donated 128 ETH to each” project, providing their official websites for anyone wishing to “follow on,” and then pivoted from philanthropy to adoption: “But also, actually download and use them!”

The transactions to SimpleX and Session were executed via Railgun, a zero-knowledge privacy system on Ethereum that obscures the sender, recipient, token type and amount when interacting with smart contracts and DeFi protocols.

While Buterin has used Railgun and other privacy-preserving systems repeatedly over the past two years, he has often explained that such transfers typically represent “some donation to a charitable, non-profit, or other project,” rather than personal cash-outs.The latest pattern fits that narrative: funds routed into Railgun and then out to privacy-focused infrastructure and applications, this time in the messaging domain.

In his post, Buterin positions encrypted messengers as a crucial layer in the broader privacy stack alongside financial anonymity. He explicitly ties the importance of Signal-style end-to-end encryption to new requirements that go beyond content secrecy: “permissionless account creation” and “metadata privacy.” The first is about removing reliance on centralized, real-world identifiers such as phone numbers or email addresses in order to create an account. The second targets the far less visible but equally revealing exhaust of digital communication: who talks to whom, when, and from where.

Why The  Ethereum Founder Supports Both Projects

Both SimpleX and Session are trying to address those problems in ways that diverge sharply from the mainstream model of phone-number-based, cloud-synced messengers. SimpleX’s own documentation emphasizes “complete privacy of your identity, profile, contacts and metadata,” stressing that the platform “has no identifiers assigned to the users – not even random numbers.”

Instead, users establish connections via QR codes or links, and communication routing is designed so that the service itself cannot reconstruct the social graph. Session, originally forked from Signal but rebuilt around onion routing and decentralized service nodes, is pushing a similar line: no phone numbers, Tor-like network-level obfuscation, and attention to metadata minimization.

Buterin is clear that his endorsement is not a claim that these apps are already finished products. “Neither of the two are perfect pieces of software, they have a way to go to get to truly optimal user experience and security,” he cautioned. He then sketched the core engineering problems that still need to be solved if “strong metadata privacy” is to coexist with the kind of convenience users now expect from mainstream messengers.

“Strong metadata privacy requires decentralization, decentralization is hard, users expecting multi-device support makes everything harder,” he wrote. He also flagged Sybil and denial-of-service resistance as a still-open design space: developers must harden “both in the message routing network and on the user side (without forcing phone number dependence).”

The latest donations also underline how Buterin increasingly uses his personal holdings to nudge the ecosystem toward specific priorities: privacy-preserving DeFi, open-source infrastructure, and now, metadata-resistant communication tools. In this case, he explicitly calls for more developer attention: “These problems need more eyes on them. I wish all teams working on these important problems best of luck.”

At press time, Ethereum (ETH) traded at $3,007.