Ethereum hits fresh all-time high amid wider market rally after Fed Chair Powell hints at rate cut

The price of ETH briefly hit its highest level yet on Friday, setting a new all-time high price above $4,878 for the world's second-largest cryptocurrency. Ethereum's native token set its previous all-time high of $4,878.26 in November 2021 during the pandemic-fueled bull market.

Ether broke through the $4,000 level over the weekend of Aug. 9 — the first time it had hit that price level since December — and crossed $4,500 on Aug. 12. ETH has had a big run-up in 2025, trading higher by more than 40% in the year-to-date period and outpacing the rise in bitcoin.

The run has been fueled in large part by the growing trend of digital asset treasuries (DATs) focused on ether, as well as record inflows into spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds. The SEC approved ETH ETFs for trading in July 2024, and they now hold over $20 billion in assets under management, led by BlackRock's ETHA.

"Feel like spot eth ETFs were severely underestimated simply b/c tradfi investors didn’t understand eth," NovaDius Wealth Management President Nate Geraci wrote in a recent post on X . He noted that bitcoin had a "nice clean narrative" by being referred to as digital gold, whereas ether takes more time for investors to understand.

"Now they’re hearing 'backbone of future financial markets' & it's resonating," he said.

Meanwhile, the cumulative market caps of public companies holding ETH is nearing $10 billion, according to The Block's data dashboard. BitMine is the largest Ethereum treasury holder with 1.15 million ETH, worth about $5 billion at current prices.

"Ethereum has the ability to secure and verify all transactions, whether they are initiated between humans or AI agents, with the vast majority of future transactions being in the latter category," Joe Lubin, founder of Consensys and chairman of Sharplink Gaming, recently told Sherwood News . "Ethereum underpins the new era of societal coordination and enables future use cases that haven’t been dreamt of yet."

ETH is up over 15% on Friday amid a wider crypto market rally spurred by dovish statements from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who hinted the central bank may soon cut interest rates . 

The surge also comes shortly after Ethereum celebrated its 10th anniversary last month.

"Ethereum is today already so much more than I ever thought it could be, and we've barely scratched the surface of all the use cases I have thought about," Paul Brody, head of blockchain at EY, previously told The Block. "The future of Ethereum is one of ever-growing expansion as it becomes the foundational plumbing not just for finance but really for all commerce over time."

Of note, the price of ETH jumped 20% back in May following Ethereum's Pectra upgrade , which improved staking efficiency, user experience, validator operations, and Layer 2 scalability. At the time, the crypto traded around $2,200.

"The Pectra upgrade did not actually contain much that would in theory affect ETH price," said Luke Nolan, senior research associate at CoinShares. "But sentiment was so extraordinarily poor, that sometimes all you need is something remotely positive to cause a shift."

ETH briefly traded around $4,880, marking a new all-time high, before dipping slightly to around $4,872 at publication time, up more than 15% on the day according to The Block's ETH price data . Ethereum's market cap sits at around $555 billion. For comparison, Bitcoin's market cap rests near $2.4 trillion.