How long can the rise of Ethereum last? An analysis from fundamental and technical perspectives.

Recently, the price of Ethereum has risen strongly, once breaking through the 2800 USD mark. Will this round of rise continue? This article conducts an in-depth analysis from both fundamental and technical perspectives.

Ethereum Fundamental Analysis

Future Major Upgrades and Impact

1. Lower the verification threshold to promote the adoption of light nodes.

Plans to launch verification mechanism optimization in the second half of 2025, gradually reducing the staking requirement from 32 ETH to 16 ETH or lower, while increasing the annualized return rate to 6%-8%. This will drive the staking rate above 40%, locking up over 48 million ETH and reinforcing the deflationary trend.

2. Achieve cross-chain liquidity integration between the mainnet and L2

The plan is to launch a cross-chain liquidity integration project by the end of 2025, breaking the interaction barriers between the mainnet and major Layer 2 networks. The goal is to increase the total locked value to over $200 billion, reduce cross-layer transaction costs by 90%, and achieve second-level transaction confirmations.

3. Reshaping the Ethereum Virtual Machine with RISC-V Architecture

The plan is to replace the existing EVM with an open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture, which is expected to bring up to a 100 times improvement in zero-knowledge proof efficiency. The goal is to increase the execution speed of smart contracts by 3-5 times while reducing Gas fees by more than 50%.

4. The mainnet introduces zkEVM

The plan is to complete the mainnet deployment by the end of 2025 to mid-2026, aiming to achieve 99% of blocks validated within 10 seconds, while reducing the verification cost of zero-knowledge proofs by about 80%.

ETH ETF position analysis

Since the U.S. SEC approved the Ethereum spot ETF on July 22, 2024, institutional investors have continued to increase their positions. As of now, U.S. spot ETF institutions hold approximately 5.038 million ETH, with BlackRock accounting for more than half, holding as much as 2.461 million.

However, the dynamic supply model of ETH differs from Bitcoin's "fixed total supply" design, which also determines that its "strategic reserve" attribute logically has an inherent contradiction. If institutions rely solely on buying and hoarding, they cannot maintain the long-term "value" of their positions.

Therefore, promoting ecological prosperity is far more important than static holdings. Only when sectors like DeFi and RWA truly operate can the destruction of ETH continue to exceed its issuance, returning to a deflationary logic and creating a "gold-like" environment for institutions to accumulate coins.

Analysis of the Old DeFi Ecosystem

The main protocols that can generate natural yields on the Ethereum mainnet include:

1. Staking / LST related protocols: such as Lido, Rocket Pool, etc.
2. Decentralized lending protocols: such as Aave, Compound, Morpho Blue, etc.
3. DEX: such as Uniswap V3, Curve, Balancer, etc.
4. Re-staking/MEV protocol: such as EigenLayer
5. Stablecoin protocols: such as MakerDAO, Liquity, etc.
6. Re-staking LST yield aggregation protocols: such as Pendle, Ether.fi, etc.
7. Real Assets ( RWA ) Protocol: such as Ondo Finance, Maple Finance, etc.

During the process of ETH rising by 50%, the old DeFi may achieve a rise of 80% or even higher, but it poses very high demands on retail or ordinary traders. In contrast, the logic of ETH itself in this cycle is clearer, excelling in high certainty, low psychological pressure on positions, and ample liquidity.

Ethereum Technical Analysis

Floating Profit Chip Occupancy Ratio Analysis

As of July 18, 2025, the proportion of floating profit chips in Ethereum has risen to 95%, approaching historical high levels. This highly concentrated state of floating profits often occurs during local market overheating phases and shows significant overlap with past peak areas.

However, solely relying on price trends to assess risk is not comprehensive; one should pay more attention to the dynamic evolution of the market's profit and loss structure. Currently, the density of profit positions in ETH is indeed at a historically relatively high level, but when combined with historical position distribution, trading depth, and capital flow, there are no signs of systemic risk yet.

The trend of Bitcoin's impact on Ethereum

As of July 17, 2025, the total realized profit of Bitcoin reached $4.3 billion, surpassing the peak levels of February and November 2024. At the same time, the continuous accumulation behavior of long-term holders since March this year has also begun to weaken, and there is a phenomenon of gradually releasing chips to the market.

Despite large profit-taking in the market, the price of BTC has not shown significant correction, indicating that the current market buying power remains resilient and has a strong ability to absorb selling pressure in the short term. The existence of this "high-level support" has also alleviated systemic pressure in the ETH market to some extent, providing confidence support for its price rise.

The Bitcoin market is currently showing a stable upward structure within a volatility convergence. Under this structure, as long as there are no significant external negative factors, the price movement of Bitcoin has strong stability, which also provides indirect support for the continuous rise of Ethereum.