Driven by the positive news of Trump’s election, the cryptocurrency market welcomed a celebratory rally, with Ethereum surging 13.18%, outperforming Bitcoin. However, whales took the opportunity to sell $24.03 million worth of Ethereum, raising concerns in the market about whether a short-term peak has already occurred.
After the crypto-friendly Trump was elected, eliminating uncertainties in the presidential election, the cryptocurrency market welcomed a celebratory rally, with Ethereum rising more than Bitcoin after a long time. According to Binance spot market data, Ethereum was only around $2,600 when Bitcoin broke $75,000 yesterday (6), and even when Bitcoin reached a historical high of $76,400 around 4 AM, Ethereum was just close to $2,700.
However, while Bitcoin's subsequent rally paused, Ethereum continued to surge, reaching a high of $2837.2 around 9:30 this morning, now reported at $2817.33, with a nearly 24-hour increase of over 13.18%.
This has reversed the continuously new low ETH/BTC ratio, currently reported at 0.03729, with a near 24-hour increase of 3.55%.
Whales are taking advantage of the surge to sell.
As a representative of altcoins, Ethereum has seen a significant rise not seen in a long time, combined with Bitcoin's market share being above 60%, the market is full of expectations for the arrival of the 'altcoin season'.
However, ancient whales began to sell during this time. According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin's monitoring this morning, an address that accumulated 11,004.9 ETH at $3.45 each eight years ago ended its long dormancy today and started selling these ETH in large quantities. Since 8 AM, this whale has sold 8,699 ETH within two hours, converting to $24.03 million USDC, with an average selling price of $2,762.
Moreover, according to monitoring by Ai Yi, a whale holding 150,000 ETH suspected to have sold 15,000 ETH yesterday (6), worth about $39.38 million. Since September 22, this whale has sold a total of 65,000 ETH, worth about $164 million.
Although the sale by whales does not mean Ethereum cannot rise, as whales continue to reduce their positions, the market is concerned whether the current Ethereum price has reached a short-term peak.
Potential catalysts for Ethereum
Looking ahead to the prospects of Ethereum, one of the most anticipated short-term positives in the market is the Pectra upgrade. This upgrade includes the Prague (execution layer) and Electra (consensus layer) updates, expected to be launched in the first quarter of 2025.
DeFi analysts point out that important updates in the Pectra upgrade include:
Account abstraction: Simplifies wallet management processes and significantly enhances user experience;
Staking optimization: Provides more flexible options for smaller-scale stakers;
Scalability enhancement: Expands blob capacity to 2-3 times the original.
In response to criticism that L2 development has led to a decline in mainnet revenue and caused ETH inflation, Federico Brokate, Vice President of 21Shares, stated that there is no need for concern. He believes this is similar to Amazon posting losses for several consecutive quarters in the 1990s. He believes that Ethereum, through its L2 expansion strategy, is attracting millions of new users at a low cost, and eventually, the fees obtained from L2 will become 'large enough' to restore Ethereum mainnet revenue to levels before the Dencun upgrade.
The Ethereum ecosystem has top development teams and continuously innovates technology, maintaining a dominant position in the DeFi sector. Especially in the current trending application narrative, the development prospects of RWA are considered huge, and the main scenarios of this application are also concentrated on the Ethereum mainnet. In addition, the Ethereum Foundation recruited five full-time researchers in mid-October, focusing on exploring 'emerging applications' on Ethereum, which is also part of market expectations.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin continues to share insights on the technical roadmap. He recently shared the goals and methods of achieving the Merge, Surge, Scourge, Verge, Purge, and Splurge phases, which will have a profound impact on the future of Ethereum. Particularly in the Surge phase, he emphasized that the collaboration of L1+L2 will enable Ethereum to reach 100,000 transactions per second, integrating into a unified ecosystem and further enhancing the mainnet's processing capacity.
