Ethereum rallied over 12% in the past week, hitting an intraday high of $1,937.60 on July 15 after sweeping a low near $1,750. The move triggered massive liquidations: $126.97 million in total ETH positions were forced closed in 24 hours, with shorts bearing $110.93 million of the pain. The breakout was catalyzed by a stop hunt on July 13 that wicked to $1,750.51, almost exactly on the 0.786 Fibonacci retracement at $1,792.57, before snapping back sharply as buyers absorbed the liquidity.
Since then, ETH has consolidated between $1,860 and $1,900, an area now seen as a key support cluster. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) sits at 71.43, signaling overbought conditions similar to those that preceded a pullback on July 11. The one-sided liquidation ratio — nearly 7-to-1 shorts vs longs — indicates forced short covering may further fuel the rally.
Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin added a fundamental narrative, arguing that low Layer 1 fees will drive enterprise adoption across Ethereum, Layer 2s, and private permissioned EVM chains, all interoperable within 2–3 years. He envisions millions of transactions generating aggregate revenue, while staking and burning push ETH into a deflationary “ultrasound” state. Skeptics counter that L2s capture up to 80% of execution fees, potentially slowing the burn and pushing supply back toward inflation.
The staking ratio is at an all-time high above 32%, with nearly 39 million ETH locked, removing roughly $80 billion from circulating supply. Institutions like Robinhood (building its own chain) and BlackRock (tokenizing funds on Ethereum) reinforce Lubin’s settlement-layer thesis. Meanwhile, analysts remain divided: Standard Chartered trimmed its year-end target to $4,000, while 21Shares’ bear case places ETH at $1,700–$2,200. Funding rates on perpetuals turned positive to 0.0082, suggesting fresh leveraged longs are building.
