Ethereum

Bitcoin closed 2025 below $88,000 after volatile trading in the $90,500–$86,500 range and is now holding above $89,000, up over 2% week-on-week. Altcoins outperformed, with ETH, BNB, SOL, and ADA gaining 5–6%, while DOGE and ZEC advanced more than 9%. Tether confirmed a $779M BTC purchase, totaling 8,888.8888888 coins in Q4 2025, as Strategy and Metaplanet resumed accumulation.

Ethereum remains the second-largest crypto by market value, while XRP trails and was recently overtaken by BNB. At the time of comparison, ETH traded around $3,035, up about 1.9% in 24 hours, with a roughly $366 billion cap, and XRP was $1.88 with about $113.8 billion. XRP would be roughly $6.04 at ETH’s current market cap and about $9.64 at ETH’s all-time high.

Ethereum Foundation co-director Tomasz Stańczak said in a recent interview that 2026 priorities include faster finality and institutional privacy, backed by a 50‑person privacy cluster and a six‑month roadmap launched in 2025. The push builds on tools like Kohaku and protocols such as Railgun, with Vitalik Buterin urging further progress toward private, censorship‑resistant DeFi.

According to CoinGlass figures cited by Ted Pillows, Ethereum logged losses in nine of twelve months in 2025, its most persistent slump since 2018. As of early January 2026, ETH trades near $3,020, up 1.6% on the day and down 11.2% year over year, with technicians eyeing $3,000 and the 200-day average.

At the start of 2026, Bitcoin is trading above $89,000 and Ethereum is over $3,000, following modest gains of 1.68% and 2.15%. Against this backdrop, Bitcoin Hyper, a Bitcoin Layer 2 integrating the Solana Virtual Machine, has raised $30 million in its presale and is being highlighted by some analysts as a high-upside opportunity, with price targets suggesting up to 100x returns.

As of January 2, Bitcoin trades just below $90,000 while Ethereum nears $3,000 amid heightened on‑chain activity. Ethereum daily transactions recently reached 2.2 million, and Q4 saw Bitcoin down more than 23% with Ethereum losing over 28%, as gold and silver rose 64% and 120% last year.

In November, Infinex and Synthetix founder Kain Warwick wagered at 10:1 odds with Kyle Samani that Ether would reach $25,000 by the end of 2025, leaving him owing $50,000 after the target was missed. Ether instead finished Dec. 31 at about $2,980 after an October downturn, and Warwick has now revised his 2026 goal to a more modest $10,000, while other analysts had also floated year-end targets around $10,000.

Arthur Hayes, the co-founder of BitMEX, shifted capital over a two-week span by selling 1,871 ETH valued at about $5.53 million and reallocating the proceeds into several DeFi tokens. He concentrated new positions in Pendle, Lido DAO, Ethena, and Ether.fi, reflecting a thesis that these protocols tied to yield, staking, and synthetic dollar mechanics may offer better risk-adjusted returns than simply holding Ethereum. Hayes has framed the moves as a portfolio rotation using ETH as base collateral rather than a complete exit from the asset.

Through 2025, institutional positions in the iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA) increased while Ethereum’s price remained volatile and range-bound. Entering 2026, ETH traded just below $3,000, with the daily chart forming a symmetrical triangle pattern that signals a potential breakout as price compression continues.

BitMine Immersion Technologies added 118,944 ETH (~$352.16M) to staking, raising its staked total to 461,504 ETH valued at $1.37B under its "Alchemy of 5%" plan. On-chain watchers flagged a new wallet receiving 32,938 ETH from FalconX, hinting at further buys. In 2025, Ethereum led net inflows above $4.2B as ETH traded near $2,980 and BMNR was around $27.15.