Ethereum Price Forecast: ETH-USD Targets $3,240 With 2026 Upside Toward $5,000

Ethereum Price Overview – ETH-USD Stuck Below $3,000 With A 40% Drawdown

ETH-USD trades around $2,920–$2,930, up roughly 0.7–0.9% intraday, but still down about 7% over the week and nearly 40% below the $4,946 all-time high set in August last year. Over the last seven days, price has oscillated between roughly $2,802 and $3,126, with repeated failures to hold above the psychological $3,000 level. Spot 24-hour volume near $28–29 billion is down around 6–8%, confirming that every push above $3,000 is happening on thinner participation. Even with that cooling, the market still assigns Ethereum a capitalization in the $350+ billion range on a circulating supply of roughly 120.7 million ETH, which matters when you look at how much of that float is being pulled off the market by treasuries, staking and ETFs.

Macro Liquidity, BTC-USD And The 2021 Template Reappearing For ETH-USD

The medium-term engine behind ETH-USD is global liquidity, not daily candles. In the prior cycle, a very specific three-step macro sequence preceded a ~226% Ethereum rally: global liquidity indices turned higher, the Russell 2000 broke out, and only then did ETH-USD enter its strongest expansion phase. That pattern is forming again. Liquidity gauges have already broken up, and the Russell 2000 has carved out a new monthly high near 2,738, signalling that risk appetite is returning first in small caps. Historically, ETH lags that move by roughly four months – in 2021 the delay was about 119 days between the Russell breakout and the start of Ethereum’s vertical move. If that analogue holds, the window where ETH-USD can transition from a grinding range around $2,800–$3,000 into a trending leg aligns with around March 2026, provided liquidity expansion does not reverse. The structure here is important: BTC-USD is already stable around the $88,000 region, up roughly 0.2% in 24 hours, but the macro configuration is more favourable for Ethereum because it sits at a deeper drawdown, has underperformed since its $4,946 high, and is more directly levered to tokenisation and DeFi flows that benefit when liquidity and risk sentiment normalize.

Institutional Accumulation: BitMine Treasury, Corporate Buyers And ETH-USD As A Balance Sheet Asset

On the institutional side, ETH-USD is increasingly treated as a treasury asset rather than just a speculative trade. A major digital asset treasury platform linked to Tom Lee has been buying into weakness instead of exiting. One recent clip was a 20,000 ETH purchase for about $58 million, and earlier activity included an additional $118 million tranche, taking total Ethereum holdings to roughly 4 million ETH and about $12.5 billion at current prices. That positions this single treasury as one of the largest non-ETF Ethereum holders on the planet. This sits on top of a broader corporate and ETF base. Since mid-2025, corporate treasuries and exchange-traded products together have accumulated around 3.8% of total circulating ETH, with treasuries alone buying about 2.3 million ETH over just two months in one of the fastest balance-sheet ramps Ethereum has ever seen. This behaviour is structurally bullish for ETH-USD. That kind of balance-sheet demand does not chase every short-term breakout; it builds a floor. The more ETH is locked into treasuries, staking and ETF wrappers, the smaller the liquid float that can react to panic selling, and the more sensitive price becomes to incremental net demand once sentiment turns.

On-Chain Structure: Realized Price, Accumulation Addresses And The $2,700 ETH-USD Support Zone

On-chain, long-term accumulation is visible in the realized price of “never-sell” wallets. Addresses that repeatedly buy and do not distribute now show a realized price near $2,720. Historically, ETH-USD has not sustained breaks below the realized price of that cohort for long; that metric tends to mark structural demand zones where aggressive accumulators defend their cost basis. With spot trading around $2,920–$2,930, the downside to that realized band is roughly 7%, putting a potential local bottom in the $2,700–$2,750 area if the market flushes one more time. This support area also overlaps with external liquidity clusters and prior demand zones identified by recent trading ranges, which makes the $2,700 handle the critical line where high-conviction buyers are most likely to step in size. The fact that realized price is trending upward – not flat – confirms that these wallets are still accumulating ETH-USD on dips rather than exiting into strength, which is what you want to see if you are building a bullish medium-term view.

US Versus Global Demand: Coinbase Premium Collapse, ETF Inflows And Weekly Outflows

Flows are split between US venues and the rest of the world. Spot ETH-USD ETFs recorded about $110 million in fresh inflows on a single Monday, a sharp reversal from the prior week where Ethereum funds bled roughly $609 million, leaving month-to-date institutional flows at about –$77.4 million and making ETH the weakest flow profile among the large-cap digital assets in that sample. At the same time, the Coinbase Premium Index 30-day average has dropped to around –0.08, its lowest reading since early 2023. A negative premium means ETH-USD trades cheaper on Coinbase than on Binance; in practice, it suggests that US-domiciled institutions and high-net-worth accounts are not leading the current wave of buying. In earlier cycles, sustained bull runs for ETH-USD coincided with a clearly positive Coinbase Premium, as American buyers paid a premium to get size done. Now, the picture is the opposite: global flows and non-US desks are stabilizing price, but the marginal US buyer is still cautious. That split reduces immediate upside momentum because US money has historically provided follow-through once breakouts start. Until the Coinbase Premium recovers closer to a healthy positive band, every move above $3,000 faces the risk of stalling into $3,050–$3,100 and being sold back into the range.

Derivatives And Positioning: Open Interest Growth, Slowing Volume And The $2,800 ETH-USD Pivot

Derivatives data shows conviction growing while momentum fades. Total ETH-USD derivatives volume has slipped around 8% to roughly $56 billion in one of the recent snapshots, while open interest climbed by about 3.6% to $38 billion. That combination – rising OI with falling turnover – usually signals traders are adding positions and then sitting on them, not flipping rapidly. If those positions skew long into a range top, the risk is obvious: a clean rejection around $3,000–$3,100 can cascade into liquidations and force selling down to the nearest strong support. That support is exactly where price just bounced: $2,796–$2,800. The market tested that area over the weekend, defended it, and managed to pull ETH-USD back toward the $3,000 level. From a structural point of view, $2,800 is not just a round number; it is the bottom of a two-month range, the vicinity of the lower Bollinger Band on the daily chart, and the point where prior dips have been absorbed. A decisive daily close below $2,800 opens direct air toward $2,600, where buyers last stepped in aggressively. A daily reclaim and hold above $3,050–$3,100, on the other hand, would mark a clear break of the declining structure and put $3,250–$3,300 back on the table for ETH-USD.

Short-Term Technical Structure: Moving Averages, Volatility Compression And Key ETH-USD Levels

Technically, ETH-USD remains stuck in a soft downtrend on the daily chart. Price trades below all the major moving averages, with the 20-day and 50-day clustered in the $3,040–$3,100 zone, which now acts as a confluence of resistance and a clear line for trend definition. After the latest rejection above $3,000, the Bollinger Bands have started to narrow, signalling volatility compression. That kind of squeeze often precedes an expansion move, but not its direction. The lower band is sitting just above $2,780, right on top of that two-month demand area; a sustained close below that band would confirm that sellers are finally overwhelming dip-buyers. Momentum indicators are soft but not broken. The daily RSI sits around 41, below neutral but not yet oversold, while the stochastic RSI has slipped toward oversold territory, hinting that the intensity of selling is fading. However, the MACD on shorter timeframes still points lower, which is consistent with a market that is correcting in time and price rather than capitulating in one move. From a trader’s perspective, the technical map is clean: support at $2,800, a deeper demand pocket around $2,600, resistance at $3,050–$3,100, and a trigger zone near $3,250 where the next expansion leg for ETH-USD can start if macro liquidity and flows line up.

Forecast Bands For ETH-USD: $3,240 Near-Term, $5,000–$20,000 For The Next Cycle

Model-based forecasts across the sources you provided converge on an upward bias with wide dispersion at the high end. Short-term projections put ETH-USD around $3,240.57 by 1 February 2026, an 11.05% gain from the $2,920 area. Average projected price for February sits near $3,773, with March targets stretching above $4,700 and a maximum scenario of roughly $5,336 if momentum and liquidity align. Longer-term, institutional research desks are openly talking about much higher bands. Tom Lee’s desk points to $7,000–$9,000 by early 2026, while Standard Chartered has raised its central case to around $7,500, explicitly linking that path to institutional accumulation and Ethereum’s dominance in stablecoins and tokenised assets. The most aggressive frameworks, like those from Fundstrat-style analyses, push scenarios where ETH-USD trades near $20,000 later in the next cycle if Ethereum becomes the default settlement layer for tokenised financial assets. Those upper targets are not guarantees; they are scenario endpoints extrapolated from liquidity growth, fee capture, and infrastructure adoption. The common denominator is that none of these models treat the current $2,900 area as a structural top. They all assume Ethereum is mid-cycle, not late-cycle, with the current range acting as a base, not a blow-off.

Ethereum’s Dominance In Tokenisation, Stablecoins, Fees And Why It Matters For ETH-USD

Fundamentals back the structural bullish narrative. Ethereum now powers over 50% of all global stablecoins and generates around 40% of total blockchain transaction fees. That means real economic activity – payments, DeFi, trading and tokenised assets – is already paying ETH-USD holders via gas demand. Corporate treasuries and ETFs collectively holding about 3.8% of circulating ETH is not speculative; it is a reflection of Ethereum’s role as settlement infrastructure. Treasury firms alone have bought 2.3 million ETH in just two months, at more than twice the pace seen in comparable Bitcoin phases. On top of that, Ethereum DeFi lending volumes have pushed total loans toward the $28 billion area, further embedding ETH into the collateral backbone of on-chain finance. BlackRock’s 2026 outlook explicitly names Ethereum as its primary blockchain for tokenisation, and JP Morgan has already used Ethereum rails for its first tokenised money market fund in a $9 trillion asset class. Every one of these steps increases baseline demand for ETH-USD as gas, collateral and treasury reserve, and each step is sticky: treasury allocations, tokenisation rails and stablecoin issuance do not simply reverse on a 10% correction.

Risk Matrix For ETH-USD: Flows, Regulation, Liquidity Reversal And Support Failure

The bullish structure does not remove risk. The first and most immediate risk is flow-based. Weekly institutional outflows of around $630 million into January pushed month-to-date net flows to about –$77.4 million despite the later $110 million ETF inflow. If that outflow regime returns and persists, it can keep ETH-USD pinned under resistance even as macro liquidity improves. Second, the negative Coinbase Premium at –0.08 highlights that US-based institutions are not yet fully re-engaged. A prolonged period where global desks are net buyers but US money stays cautious will cap the speed of any breakout. Third, regulation and ETF behaviour matter. Large Ethereum ETFs can, in a stress event, flip from inflows to multi-hundred-million-dollar daily outflows, as already seen in past episodes, which can overwhelm spot order books and trigger sharp wicks below support. Fourth, pure technical risk remains: a daily close below $2,800 exposes $2,600, and a failure there would force the market to re-price the realized support of accumulation addresses near $2,720 and potentially reset that anchor lower. Finally, macro risk exists on the liquidity side; the entire bullish template assumes that global liquidity continues its breakout. A sharp policy shift, credit stress or a risk-off shock that drags small caps and high-beta equities lower would break the 2021 analogue and delay or even cap the next ETH-USD expansion.

ETH-USD Verdict: Short-Term Sideways To Choppy, Medium-Term Bullish Accumulation Zone – Buy With Risk Controls

Putting everything together – price near $2,920, structural support around $2,700–$2,800, a ~40% drawdown from the $4,946 peak, realized price of accumulation addresses at $2,720, corporate and ETF ownership of about 3.8% of supply, treasury buying that has pushed holdings beyond 4 million ETH, and macro liquidity plus Russell 2000 leadership echoing the 2021 setup – the balance of evidence is skewed bullish over a 12–24 month horizon while acknowledging that the next $200–$300 move can still be down before the bigger leg up. Short term, ETH-USD is in a compression regime between roughly $2,800 and $3,100 with derivatives positioning and a negative Coinbase Premium arguing for more choppy, stop-hunting price action. Medium term, the confluence of institutional accumulation, tokenisation adoption, stablecoin dominance and favourable liquidity cycles supports a clear accumulation stance. On that basis, the rational call is Buy, with size scaled to the risk that a flush toward $2,600 is still on the table. For traders, that means using $2,700–$2,800 as the primary accumulation band and treating any clean reclaim of $3,050–$3,100 as confirmation that the next phase of the ETH-USD up-cycle is underway.

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