Ethereum price eyes new all-time high, but will $15K peak?

After hitting a new year high of $4,108 on December 16, Ether (ETH) is poised to hit an all-time high in the coming days.

ETH price gained 8% last week. The second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is up 28% over the past 30 days and 82% over the past year.

According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, the price of Ether was trading at $4,000, which is 18% shy of the high of $4,891 set on November 26, 2021.

Coupled with ETH's performance on December 17th is a 30% jump in daily trading volume, now at $42 billion, suggesting that this rally has momentum.

But how much higher could the price of Ether investment products see a continuous flow along with other fundamentals and onchain metrics?

Decrease in ETH supply on exchanges

One factor supporting Ether's rise is the reduction in exchange supply. According to data from onchain market data firm CryptoQuant, the ETH rate reached an 8.5-year low of 9.2 million ETH, down 10 percent from last year.

Since October 2023, the net flow to/from the exchange has declined significantly since the beginning of the surge in funds from the trading platforms. This drop adds up to a 73 percent increase in Ether's price over the same period.

Ethereum whales grow in number.

The exchange's declining supply can be partly explained by the increase in stocks of large holders over the past few weeks.

Notably, Well wallet holdings have reached an all-time high, accounting for 57 percent of all ETH in circulation.

“Currently, 104 Well wallets hold at least 100,000 Ethereum,” he said in a Dec. 16 post on X with a combined holding of about $333 billion.

Wallets holding between 10 ETH and 100,000 ETH have a historically low supply ratio of 33.5%, and wallets holding less than 100 ETH have a supply ratio of just 9.19%, a nearly four-year low, the analyst firm added.

“Ethereum's largest whale pool of 100K+ has an all-time high of 83.81 million tokens, and the asset will soon return above $4,000 in market value.”

This means that whales did not sell in the last rally, but continued to accumulate. This could be a sign of long-term bullishness, especially if this trend continues.

Meanwhile, the daily average of new Ethereum addresses exceeded 130,200 in December, an eight-month high, Santiment said.

Furthermore, Ether's bullish performance is accompanied by a rise in total open interest (OI) in the derivatives market, which rose from 9.8 billion ETH on November 5 to 20.7 billion ETH on December 17.

The chart above shows that Ether's OIA has jumped 24% over the past seven days, indicating increased demand for additional ETH positions and new money entering the market in general.

Institutional demand for Ether products is increasing.

Meanwhile, US-based spot ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have recorded positive gains every day since November 22.

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The investment products recorded their biggest revenue day on December 5th, bringing in over $428 million. The SpotEther ETF saw total inflows of $854.8 million at the end of December 13.

In general, Ether exchange-traded products (ETPs) continued to gain, with new revenue coming in for seven straight weeks across various Ether-based ETPs, totaling $3.7 billion.

Ether ETFs tracked by CoinShares provide exposure to assets such as a market index or an individual investment, including the Spot Ether ETF.

James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, said this showed a “tremendous improvement” in investor sentiment for ETH.

“Ethereum has seen US$1 billion in revenue for the 7th week in a row, with inflows totaling US$3.7 billion over those 7 weeks, showing a dramatic improvement in sentiment.

If institutional sentiment is high, ETH price may push towards November 2021 all-time highs in the coming days.

Analysts have set five-figure targets for the price of ETH.

According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, ETH is struggling to move past the key $4,000 resistance level into new support as a launch to new all-time highs.

“The fight for $4,000 continues,” noted crypto analyst Jelle in a Dec. 17 post on X.

According to co-analyst Venture Founder, ETH has been integrated into the triangle for more than three years, which sets the stage for a “new paradigm”.

The analyst cited a two-week candlestick chart that is part of a seven-year consolidation that takes Ether's price above $15,000.

“Fundamentals: Ethereum may repeat this sudden burst that it did between 2016 and 2017 to hit a new ATH. Price target: $15,937 by May 2025.”

“We will have a similar cycle to 2017,” said MN Capital founder Michael Van de Pop, who pegged the cycle's peak for ETH at $15,000 to $25,000.

However, other established crypto market participants are seeking more conservative price targets. VanEyck predicted a cyclical peak of $6,000 for Ether and $180,000 for Bitcoin (BTC) in 2025.

Bitwise Asset Management predicts that Bitcoin, Ether and Solana (SOL) will reach $200,000, $7,000 and $750 respectively by 2025.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and business activity involves risk, and readers should do their own research when making a decision.