Ethereum trades at $3,389.33, up 6.37% in 24 hours, 7.27% in the last 7 days, and 13.6% in the last 30 days. Volume surged to $36.4 billion, up more than 82%. Price looks healthy, yet it still lags the explosive growth under the hood. Ethereum now faces a familiar question. Does usage eventually force price to catch up?
Right now, that gap looks impossible to ignore.
Network Activity Reaches Record Highs
Ethereum’s on-chain metrics just printed historic levels. Santiment data shows 393,500 new wallets created in a single day. That marks an all-time high. Over the past three weeks, wallet creation averaged more than 327,000 per day.
Nansen data confirms the trend. Monthly active addresses jumped 45% to 12.4 million while transaction counts climbed 23% to over 55 million. Only Linea grew faster over the same period.
Ethereum also tightened its grip on high-value sectors:
- •76% dominance in DeFi
- •63% dominance in real-world assets
This happened despite growing competition from Layer 1s and Layer 2s. The Fusaka upgrade, rising stablecoin usage, and renewed RWA demand all played a role. Two more upgrades, Glamsterdam and Hegota, sit ahead and both aim to boost speed and security. Usage looks alive, and price still plays catch-up.
CLARITY Act Could Change the Game
The next catalyst comes from Washington. The U.S. Senate is set to mark up the CLARITY Act this week. The bill aims to draw a clear line between the SEC and CFTC. Many see it as a path to classify ETH as a digital commodity.
That matters. For years, Ethereum lived under regulatory fog. Unclear rules capped institutional conviction, and clarity could flip that script. Would large capital finally treat ETH like digital infrastructure rather than a legal risk? Markets rarely wait for certainty. They front-run it.
Institutions and Corporations Load Up on ETH
Capital already moves quietly. Bitmine Immersion Technologies now holds 4.168 million ETH. That equals about 3.45% of total supply. Nearly 1.26 million ETH sits staked and Bitmine aims for 5% supply ownership in months, not years.
The company also holds nearly $14 billion in crypto and cash. Tom Lee urges shareholders to support a strategy focused on growing ETH per share. Bitmine remains the largest fresh-money buyer of ETH globally. Between Jan 5th and Jan 11th, Bitmine bought 24,266 $ETH($75.59M), marking its lowest weekly purchase on record.
This trend mirrors Bitcoin’s corporate phase, and Ethereum now enters its own version.
Technical Structure Sets the Tone
Technicals matter more than headlines. ETH trades near a $3,350 known supply zone. A recent CPI-driven rally helped ETH reclaim rising trend support and now, higher lows remain intact.
Key levels define the roadmap:
- •Break and close above $3,350 opens $3,600
- •Holding $3,600 sets sights on $4,000
- •Failure keeps ETH range-bound
Source: TradingView
Standard Chartered sees ETH at $40,000 by 2030. That sounds extreme, but the logic hinges on capital retention, staking growth, and long-duration holding. Without that, price spikes fade, but with all that, supply tightens.
ETH Price Prediction Table
| Year | Min Price | Avg Price | Max Price |
| 2026 | $3,800 | $5,200 | $7,500 |
| 2027 | $5,500 | $7,200 | $9,800 |
| 2028 | $7,800 | $10,500 | $14,000 |
| 2029 | $11,500 | $16,000 | $22,000 |
| 2030 | $18,000 | $28,000 | $40,000 |
| 2040 | $95,000 | $140,000 | $220,000 |
Final Thoughts on ETH’s Long-Term Outlook
Ethereum does not lack demand. It lacks price recognition. Record activity, regulatory momentum, and aggressive corporate accumulation change the equation, and the CLARITY Act could remove the final mental barrier.
Does ETH need hype? It just needs time for all the developments to materialise. The structure looks ready, but the question remains simple. Will the market wait, or will it rush in once the breakout starts?