Ethereum Reclaims Momentum: Price Rally, Retail FOMO, and NFT Culture Surge

Ethereum has surged past $3,400, hitting its highest level since January. At the time of writing, it is trading at $3,430. Over the past 24 hours, the price has gained approximately 9 percent. The ETH to BTC ratio has climbed above 0.029, the strongest level since February this year. Market sentiment toward Ethereum has significantly improved compared to earlier this year.

A report from Santiment, a market intelligence platform, shows retail investors are shifting away from Bitcoin and turning their sights to Ethereum and altcoins. On July 16, the ETH FOMO index spiked. Mentions of altcoins and bullish price targets have flooded X, Reddit, and Telegram, with growing calls for Ethereum to reach $4,000. Additionally, the recent price rebound has sparked heightened interest, pushing online discussions to their highest level since a comparable rally in May 2024.

This growing excitement has also spilled over into Ethereum-related cultural trends, particularly within the NFT community. NFTs have long been Ethereum’s leverage in the market, but trading volume has remained muted since the 2022 bubble burst. Now, with sentiment improving, the community appears to be anticipating a revival of the NFT narrative. Arthur Hayes posted on X, “It’s ETH szn, so time for a new PFP.” The trend of updating profile pictures has gained momentum recently, with many switching to Pudgy Penguins. Binance U.S. also joined in, changing its profile picture to a Pudgy Penguin NFT on July 14, an Azuki NFT on July 15, and and most recently, to MOG coin, a cat meme token on Ethereum.

Ethereum Surges on Institutional Demand: ETFs, Open Interest, and Strategic Accumulation

Currently, Ethereum ranks 26th in global total assets by market cap with a valuation of $401.91 billion. Bitcoin remains in 6th place overall. Ethereum and Bitcoin are the only two cryptocurrencies featured in the global top 30 assets by market capitalization.

This strong market position has been further reinforced by sustained institutional interest through Ethereum ETFs. Ethereum ETFs have now posted net inflows for 10 straight weeks since May, based on data from SosoValue. On July 16, ETH ETFs recorded a net inflow of $726.74 million, the highest single-day inflow and trading volume since launch. Total ETF holdings have grown to roughly 5 million ETH. According to Trader T (@thepfund), BlackRock’s Ethereum ETF ($ETHA) alone saw a net inflow of 148,585 ETH, or about $489 million, setting its own record for the largest one-day inflow. That same day, total trading volume reached $1.8 billion, another all-time high.

Futures market activity has climbed alongside Ethereum’s price surge. Open interest in Ethereum hit a record $50.19 billion, according to CoinGlass data, marking a 7.74 percent increase over the past 24 hours. Binance led the pack with $8.82 billion in open interest. In the same 24-hour span, total short liquidations reached $338.51 million. ETH short liquidations alone accounted for $226.09 million. The largest single liquidation was on HTX, involving an ETH-USDT position worth $3.21 million.

As the U.S. loosens its stance on cryptocurrency regulations, more companies are following early adopters by adding Bitcoin to their strategic reserves. However, a growing number of new entrants are now choosing Ethereum instead. On July 17, Evgeny Gaevoy, co-founder of Wintermute, noted the rising demand, stating, "There is (clearly) almost no #ETH available for sale on the Wintermute OTC desk."

This tightening supply has coincided with direct on-chain accumulation by companies. SharpLink Gaming (Nasdaq: SBET) is among the early movers, steadily accumulating ETH. Most recent on-chain data shows the company purchased an additional 10,614 ETH worth $35.62 million. As of now, SharpLink’s total ETH holdings have reached 307,362 ETH, valued at approximately $1.03 billion.

The strategy of holding ETH as a reserve asset is gaining momentum. According to Strategic ETH Reserve website, Bitmine Immersion Tech (Nasdaq: BMNR) holds 163,100 ETH and Bit Digital (Nasdaq: BTBT) holds 100,600 ETH. Both companies have integrated Ethereum into their long-term treasury strategies.

Ethereum Foundation’s 2025 Restructuring in Progress: Leadership, Strategy, and zkEVM Rollout

Since the beginning of this year, the Ethereum Foundation has implemented a series of updates and restructurings in response to ongoing criticism from the community regarding its governance and strategic direction.

January 2025

Ethereum entered 2025 on shaky ground, with internal tensions and public criticism mounting around the Foundation’s direction.

"No. This is not how this game works."

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin made the statement on X in response to backlash surrounding recent leadership changes at the Ethereum Foundation (EF). He clarified that he currently retains decision-making authority over the new leadership team. Although reforms are in progress to establish a formal board of directors, final decisions remain with him until the transition is complete.

Buterin’s remarks quickly drew backlash on X. The controversy erupted shortly after the launch of the TRUMP memecoin, during a period when Solana was trading near $250, Bitcoin had surged to approximately $104,000, and Ethereum lagged behind at around $3,300. Over the past year, Ethereum's repeated failure to break its all-time high of $4,800, coupled with continued ETH sell-offs by the Foundation, has deepened community frustration and weakened investor confidence.

Kyle Samani, co-founder of Multicoin Capital, criticized the Ethereum Foundation for its slow response to scaling issues and lack of urgency. He stated that he has lost faith in Ethereum, arguing that even after seven years, the Foundation remains disconnected from user needs and lacks clear leadership.

Adding to the criticism, Justin Sun posted a mock proposal titled “First Week Plan: If EF and Ethereum Were Under My Leadership, #ETH to $10,000,” further fueling debate across the community.

February 2025

In response to the growing backlash and internal pressure, the Ethereum Foundation began making structural changes aimed at restoring trust and improving governance. The Foundation launched the EF Silviculture Society, an external advisory group offering informal guidance to uphold Ethereum’s core values: open-source development, privacy, security, and censorship resistance.

March 2025

A new leadership structure was announced, appointing Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak as Co-Executive Directors, effective March 17. EF researcher Danny Ryan also returned to the ecosystem as co-founder of Etherealize, an institutional marketing and product arm for Ethereum.

The leadership shakeup marked a pivotal shift in how the Foundation approaches long-term strategy and execution. Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko called the move a “significant turning point in Ethereum’s history,” stating that the new structure aims to uphold Ethereum’s core values while modernizing its approach to scalability, resilience, and governance.

Co-Executive Director Tomasz Stańczak echoed the urgency, stating that the reserve disclosure created a brief window for builders to showcase Ethereum’s maturity across institutional-grade use cases including DeFi, staking, custody, and stablecoins. He acknowledged the Foundation might not move fast enough and urged developers to take immediate action, highlighting Ethereum’s strength as a developer-driven ecosystem ready for institutional scale.

April 2025

Co-Executive Directors Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak released their first joint statement, outlining the Ethereum Foundation’s strategic focus for the year ahead. The Foundation will prioritize three key areas: mainnet scaling, blobs expansion, and user experience improvements, with an emphasis on Layer 2 interoperability and the application layer. The statement reaffirmed Ethereum’s commitment to its four core values: censorship resistance, open-source innovation, privacy protection, and security.

Vitalik Buterin also shared his personal roadmap for 2025 on Farcaster, highlighting long-term priorities such as single-slot finality, virtual machine upgrades, statelessness, and strengthening Ethereum’s security, resilience, and decentralization. He also underscored a continued focus on full-stack security, open-source, and privacy.

May 2025

The Ethereum mainnet successfully completed the Pectra upgrade.

June 2025

The Ethereum Foundation announced a major restructuring of its research and development division, renaming the team to "Protocol" to better align with its focus on Ethereum’s core technical challenges. The reorganization included staff reductions and a renewed emphasis on three main priorities: scaling Ethereum’s base layer, expanding blobspace to enhance data availability, and improving user experience across the network

July 2025

On July 10, the Ethereum Foundation restructured its Ecosystem Development strategy, launching four new teams to drive adoption through enterprise outreach, developer support, application research, and founder enablement. The move aims to grow Ethereum’s user base and strengthen its infrastructure.

That same day, Ethereum introduced a new L1 zkEVM proving standard, advancing its shift to zero-knowledge technology. The standard sets strict performance and hardware requirements to support secure, censorship-resistant, and decentralized validation, paving the way for native zk-rollup deployment within a year.

Ethereum at a Crossroads: Momentum Builds, But Can It Last?

With Ethereum regaining momentum in both price and institutional adoption, and the Ethereum Foundation actively reforming its leadership and technical roadmap, the ecosystem appears to be entering a new phase of growth.

While Ethereum’s fundamentals have remained solid, negative sentiment and persistent FUD within the crypto community earlier this year weighed heavily on its narrative. Now, with retail interest rising, ETFs breaking records, and structural improvements unfolding, sentiment is beginning to shift. All eyes are on whether Ethereum can sustain this upward trajectory and finally surpass its long-standing all-time high of $4,800.