The price of Ether (ETH) is closing in on $4,000 during early trading on May 27, rising 5% over the past 24 hours and prompting hope it could be the beginning of Ether’s post-ETF approval pump.
The asset gained almost 5% on the day to hit an intra-day high of $3,930, according to Cointelegraph data — ETH also tapped a similar price just days ago when spot Ether ETFs were first approved on May 23.
#ETH has climbed back above $3,900. Will we see $4K? today pic.twitter.com/pD4CqmBmTo
— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) May 27, 2024
This has given ETH a 27.5% gain over the past week, eclipsing Bitcoin (BTC), which has gained just 3.8% in the same timeframe.
On May 27, analyst Matthew Hyland told his 143,000 X followers that ETH has confirmed a bullish divergence and a break of the downtrend with an increase in volume, further validating the breakout.
The big weekly move has spurred a wave of predictions from industry analysts and observers.
In a May 26 post on X, DeFiance Capital founder Arthur Cheong predicted that ETH would reach $4,500 even before spot ETFs are launched.
He held a poll on X on May 25 asking how much ETH was allocated to his follower’s portfolios. Nearly half of the 5,800 respondents had between zero and 25% allocation, prompting Cheong to observe: “Just look at how much CT is underallocated to ETH,”
Meanwhile, Ethereum educator Anothny Sassano predicted that MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor would buy ETH within the next six to twelve months.
Related: Why is Ether (ETH) price up today?
Bitcoin prices surged more than 70% to an all-time high in the two months that followed the spot BTC ETF approvals in the United States.
If Ether mimics BTC, a similar move could propel prices to an all-time high of around $6,000 by the end of July.
Ether’s big move has had other effects on the crypto ecosystem.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) total value locked has returned to its highest level for two years at $117 billion, with 60% of that locked on the Ethereum network, according to DefiLlama.
Meanwhile, Ethereum layer-2 networks are nearing a collective all-time high in total value, locked at around $47 billion, according to L2beat.
Magazine: Historic turning point for crypto, Ethereum ETFs, FIT21, Trump: Hodler’s Digest, May 19-25