Ethereum suffers divergence between price and network activity

There is a question that flyes to the market: why Ether (ETH), Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency, still has difficulty overcoming the 4,000 dollar barrier?

While other assets, such as Bitcoin (BTC) or XRP, have marked new historical maximums (ATH) so far from 2025, ETH is still caught in a lateral range that arouses doubts among investors.

From 2024 to date, the native Ethereum currency touched the resistance of 4,000 dollars three times, but failed to stay above that level. On each occasion, the initial impulse faded and the price backed down, leaving ETH again below that key threshold.

At the time of the publication of this note, the ETH price is $ 3,840, 21% below its $ 4,890 ATH reached in 2021.

The fact that ETH cannot overcome the barrier of $ 4,000 feeds the perception that he is not yet ready to make the next jump. But, Is that idea really so or is there a divergence between the price of the asset and what is happening in its ecosystem?

Data ON-CHAIN They reflect that the activity in Ethereum is experiencing sustained growth.

On the one hand, the daily transactions in the ecosystem reached a 1.74 million ATH on August 5, according to a 7 -day mobile average, exceeding the 1.65 million record that was recorded in May 2021.

In July, meanwhile, 46.67 million transactions were made in Ethereum, the highest number in its history.

In addition, on August 5, 683,520 active addresses were recorded in a mobile average of 7 days, The second highest level in Ethereum’s historyonly behind the 743,730 record reached on May 12, 2021.

And this is important to highlight it because A higher level of activity in Ethereum, also increases eth demand for the payment of commissions of these transactions. By simple supply and demand law, that must generate an upward impulse in the price of the asset.

Although the increase in activity is not reflected in the ETH price, sooner rather than later the asset will enter a bullish rally. Not only the data ON-CHAIN They show positive signals: Ether has become the new love of Wall Street, as reported by cryptoics.

More and more companies are adding ETH to their corporate reserves to benefit from the extra income (3% annual in ETH) generated by the staffing. In this regard, James Ford, financial market analyst, explains: “With its growing institutional adoption, attractive performance opportunities and an increasingly solid narrative, ETH begins to sneak into corporate treasures as a modern and ambitious alternative to the traditional treasure bonds.”

A sample of this is How ETH institutional adoption has grown from April to August. Currently, more than 3 million ETH are in the hands of foundations, companies, DAO protocols and governmental entities.

This business love is also reflected in The performance that the funds quoted in the stock market are having (ETF) ETH in the United States. During the month of July, these financial instruments accumulated tickets for more than 2.2 billion dollars.

After a beginning with more shadows than lights, ETFs can be considered a success. From its debut in July 2024 until the time of publication of this article, they have accumulated more than 9,000 million dollars.

It is important to mention the performance of the ETF because some analysts, such as Vincent Liu or Mandela Amoussou, argue that the integration of staking into these instruments will have the price of the asset above $ 4,000. As Cryptonotics, fund managers such as Fidelity and 21Shares reported, have presented their proposals to the United States Stock Exchange and Securities Commission (SEC) to integrate this mechanism into their ETF.

The body that now conducts Paul Atkins must define whether it approves or rejects these requests. The expectations are positive, especially after the SEC gave a green light to a solana (sun) ETF with staking.

And then … what about Ether’s price?

The gap between the price of ETH and the increase in on-chain activity and institutional adoption opens the debate about whether the asset is undervalued. Or, at least, he invites to investigate what factors prevent him from overcoming the resistance of $ 4,000.

Arnau painted, financial analyst, argues that This divergence is pure and exclusively to manipulation market. In this regard, he says: “There are no negative data, however, its price does not rise. What is happening is that the Market Makers They are intervening to lower their price. ”

Before continuing with your thesis, it is important to explain what the Market Makers (Market creators, in Spanish). These are actors – companies or individuals – who facilitate the operation of the market by constantly offering purchase and sale prices. In this way, they guarantee liquidity and less volatility. But also, by that same function, they have tools to influence the direction of the price of an asset like ETH.

To base his opinion, Painted shares a graph in which the net exposure of the ETH -sized funds on ETH, according to data from the Basic Products Trade Commission of the United States (CFTC), the agency that regulates the markets of futures and financial derivatives is seen.

As you can see, there is a Domain of Short Positions (Red Bars) Since 2022with a pronounced fall that reaches more than 11,000 contracts in negative. This indicates a strong bearish pressure exerted by these funds in recent months.

It should be noted that it is an assumption of painting, but not for that reason it must be discarded fully.

Apart from this possible market manipulation, which is not an assumption is that Ethereum’s foundations remain solid. Everything indicates that it is a matter of time for the ETH price to reflect that potential.