Institutional leap: Ethereum ETFs break records and push the price above $3,500

Record capital inflows into ether-based spot funds have reformatted the market in just one day. Net inflows into instruments tracking ETH reached $726.74 million, exceeding daily coin issuance by over thirty times. Since the products' debut, their cumulative inflows have exceeded $5.5 billion, two-thirds of which came in the last three months as yields on curry strategies and open interest in the regulated derivatives market surged.

The largest contribution came from a fund managed by BlackRock, which attracted $489 million in new capital and brought its portfolio to $6.94 billion. In total, five U.S. issuers accumulated about 5 million ETH, equivalent to 4.02% of the network's circulation. Demand from exchange-traded products consistently outstrips issuance: funds buy tokens on average 36 times faster than validators issue them after each epoch.

The market reaction hasn't been long in coming. The asset reached a six-month peak of $3,482, consolidating above the $3,400 mark. The technical picture remains bullish: the quote is moving in an ascending channel, the RSI is holding in the 80 zone, and the Ishimoku cloud is forming support around $3,200. Strategists at several research bureaus are calling $4,000 "the next maturity test."

The paradigm shift is evident in the corporate sector as well. A number of public companies are reallocating a portion of their coffers from bitcoin to ether, motivating the decision by the ability to generate revenue from staking without inflationary pressures. SharpLink Gaming's coffers are valued at more than $1.1 billion, with news feeds capturing additional acquisitions totaling a combined $75 million. Executives attribute the strategy to a combination of paying potential, profitability and technology commodity status.

The legislative panorama is also shaping up favorably. Following the approval of the GENIUS Stable Coin Act in the House of Representatives, Congress signaled a willingness to establish uniform standards for digital assets. The SEC has concurrently relaxed its approach to delegated staking services, removing one of the key barriers to institutional participation. Risk management is now shifting from legal obscurity to technology.

From an infrastructure perspective, the network has made a quantum leap. The activation of the Pectra upgrade in May added smart accounts, optimized validators and expanded Layer 2 bandwidth. The parallel integration of zkEVM reduces the cost of operations and increases privacy, paving the way for new corporate cases.

Nevertheless, security remains a challenge: July's $2.5 million Arcadia protocol hack reminded us of the risks of layer 2. Despite this, the volume of blocked assets in DeFi is growing, and given the mechanism for burning a portion of commissions, net ether inflation at mid-year is close to zero.

Investors are now looking beyond the current growth. Market participants are waiting for ETF options to be approved and for structures to emerge that transfer a portion of the staking fees to equity holders. If the initiatives materialize, the asset will receive two additional sources of stable demand, which could radically transform the supply dynamics in the coming quarters.