Ethereum’s price saw a significant gain on Tuesday, rising 6.5% and again crossing the critical $3,300 level for the first time in almost a month. This has allowed Ethereum to overtake its top 10 crypto competitors by market capitalization, showing a nearly 12% recovery in the leading altcoin over the past week.
Demand for ETH is growing
Analysts at Bull Theory attribute this resurgence to several key factors, including sturdy institutional interest in Ethereum. The company highlighted BitMine, which has the largest public company ETH collection, as a major player in this phase of economic recovery.
Recently on social media update on X (formerly Twitter), analysts have indicated that demand for ETH is growing as Wall Street quietly builds on the Ethereum platform.
It is worth noting that major financial institutions are starting to make significant moves in the Ethereum space. BlackRock, which manages $13.5 trillion, is launching tokenized funds and has filed to create an Ethereum exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Other notable players include JPMorgan with $4 trillion in assets, Deutsche Bank with $1.1 trillion in assets and Standard Chartered with $800 billion in assets. These companies are developing tokenization and decentralized finance (DeFi), especially in Ethereum and its Layer 2 (L2) solutions.
Additionally, well-known financial entities such as Amundi, HSBC, BNY Mellon, Coinbase (COIN), Kraken, and Robinhood (HOOD) are incorporating Ethereum into their operations to perform functions such as depository, settlement, and rollup infrastructure.
As a result, these gigantic companies hold and ETH staking in order to generate profit, significantly increasing demand for the altcoin. For example, BitMine projects to earn over $400 million annually from its stake position.
Can Ethereum Price Reach $12,000?
Such institutional commitment has led market experts such as Tom Lee to speculate that Ethereum’s price could potentially reach $12,000 by 2026, driven by rising staking demand and scaling tokenization efforts.
Let’s add dynamics, Arkham reported that Tom Lee’s Ethereum treasury firm has acquired 138,452 ETH worth approximately $431.97 million since last week. BitMine currently holds $12.05 billion in ETH and has an additional $1 billion earmarked for further purchases.
In another development that could push Ethereum’s price even higher, Chris MacDonald, an analyst at The Motley Fool, highlighted reports indicating that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has confirmed that US banks can now legally conduct “principal risk-free” transactions in crypto assets.
The analyst asserted that this modern regulatory approval could lead to an inflow of capital into the digital asset, which will likely benefit the price and holders of Ethereum, as well as other leading cryptocurrencies.
At the time of writing, Ethereum is trading at $3,325. Despite the recent gains, the price is still almost 33% below its all-time high of $4,946, which was reached earlier this year.
Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com
