Ethereum shot to a six-month high on Thursday when it touched briefly at $3,481, fueled by historic inflows into spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and a sudden increase in network activity.
The institutional purchasing is driving the bull trend, with ETF issuers such as BlackRock, Fidelity, and Grayscale drawing a cumulative $726.6 million in money on July 16 alone. BlackRock alone accounted for $499.2 million, and showed what analysts are calling a “decisive move” by institutional capital into Ethereum.
Analysts, including Mikybull Crypto and Blazey Crypto, described the surge as a reflection of institutional conviction rather than speculative retail interest. “This is big boy money moving in,” said Blazey Crypto, referring to BlackRock’s outsized contribution.
Mikybull highlighted that this was the highest daily inflow since the launch of spot Ethereum ETFs on July 23, 2024, with cumulative flows exceeding $1.76 billion in just five days.
The inflows coincide with a sharp rise in Ethereum network activity. Active addresses rose 6.7% over the past 24 hours to 463,880, and daily transactions hit 1.49 million, a 2% day-on-day increase, according to Nansen.
Ethereum’s fee revenue also jumped to $3.11 million on July 16, its 30-day high, suggesting a surge in demand for blockspace and smart contract usage.
This has driven total value locked (TVL) across the Ethereum network to a three-year high of $78.2 billion, according to DefiLlama, with Ethereum in the lead at a 58% market share.
Technical indicators also make the bulls’ case. On the three-week chart, ETH is battling a pivotal falling trendline from its 2021 all-time high.
A confirmed breakout above $3,600 could target $4,078, and potentially revisit the $4,962 peak.
The Relative Strength Index (RSI) also broke above a multi-year downtrend, currently sitting at 57.75, indicating strength. Back in April, RSI had flashed a rare buy signal near 40, historically associated with 350%–1,360% gains.
Crypto analysts like Mikybull Crypto now eye ETH’s upper target between $7,000 and $10,000 later in 2025, citing bullish ETF momentum, a surge in network fundamentals, and improving technicals as key drivers.
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