<div id="readability-page-1"><div><div><p>Author: Nikka / WolfDAO (X: @10xWolfdao)</p><h3>Market Status Quo and Key Turning Point</h3><p><img src="https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://uploads.panewslab.com/2026z/ad29a019-fdf0-4891-bc59-a1f9f796fe7b?x-oss-process=image/auto-orient,1/interlace,1/resize,w_1440,h_1440/quality,q_95/format,jpg" width="1024" height="693" original-src="https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://uploads.panewslab.com/2026z/ad29a019-fdf0-4891-bc59-a1f9f796fe7b"/></p><p>Entering 2026, the total market capitalization of the crypto market has returned to over $3 trillion, and Bitcoin's dominance briefly fell below 60%, sparking discussions about an &#34;altbox season.&#34; Ethereum is at a critical turning point. It has broken through $3200 in the short term, achieving a significant rebound from the low point at the end of 2025.</p><p>... While still 34% below its September 2025 high of $4,700, several early signs suggest that ETH may be brewing a structural rally. 1. Staking Queue Reversal: Selling Pressure Significantly Reduced The most important catalyst for 2026 comes from a dramatic reversal in the staking queue. For the first time since July 2025, a &#34;switch of roles&#34; has occurred, marking a shift in investor confidence from retreat to locking in positions. Specifically, when the price of ETH surged to around $4,700 in mid-September 2025, a total of 2.66 million ETH chose to exit staking, creating selling pressure that lasted for several months. After three and a half months of digestion, only about 80,000 ETH remain waiting to exit, meaning the source of selling pressure has been largely eliminated. At the same time, the number of ETH waiting to be staked has surged to 900,000-1,000,000, an increase of about 120% from 410,000 at the end of December. This number is 15 times the number exiting the queue, causing the validator activation waiting time to extend to 17 days. Currently, the total amount of Ethereum staked has reached 35.5 million, accounting for 28.91% of the circulating supply, with an annualized yield maintained at 3-3.5%. Historical data shows that when the number of ETH entering the queue significantly exceeds the number exiting, it often foreshadows a price increase. This supply lock will significantly reduce the amount of liquid ETH in the market, and combined with whales' continuous purchases of over $3.1 billion since July 2025, it forms a strong foundation for a price increase. 2. Institutional Entry: From Passive Holding to Active Participation If the reversal in staking is a supply-side signal, then the frenzied entry of institutions is the core driver of demand. BitMine Immersion Technologies, the world's largest Ethereum treasury company, is rewriting the game. The company holds over 4.11 million ETH, accounting for 3.41% of the total supply, but more importantly, it is shifting from &#34;passive holding&#34; to &#34;active interest generation.&#34; In the last eight days, BitMine has staked over 590,000 ETH, worth over $1.8 billion. On January 3rd alone, it staked 82,560 ETH, worth approximately $259 million. The company plans to stake 5% of the total Ethereum supply in the first quarter through its own validator network, MAVAN, with an expected annualized return of $374 million. This aggressive move not only boosted the staking queue but also caused BMNR's stock price to surge by 14%. The broader institutional trend is equally noteworthy. ETH spot ETFs saw inflows exceeding $9.6 billion in 2025, with a historical total inflow exceeding $125 billion. The first day of 2026 saw a net inflow of $1.74 billion. BlackRock's ETHA fund holds approximately 3 million ETH, worth nearly $9 billion. Coinbase, Grayscale, and other institutions predict that 2026 will usher in the &#34;institutional era,&#34; with more ETP products and on-chain vaults driving a doubling of assets under management. Meanwhile, large on-chain accounts accumulated over 10 million ETH in 2025, setting a new historical high. These data collectively point to one fact: institutions no longer view ETH as a purely speculative asset, but rather as a yield-generating infrastructure asset. 3. Technological Updates: Evolving into a Global Settlement Layer 2025 was a banner year for Ethereum technology. The Pectra and Fusaka upgrades were implemented, laying a solid foundation for further explosive growth in 2026. This is not simply a performance optimization, but a strategic transformation—transforming Ethereum into a high-throughput, low-cost global settlement layer. The Pectra upgrade, completed in the first half of 2025, saw its core breakthrough lie in EIP-7251, which increased the validator staking cap from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH, greatly facilitating large-scale staking by institutions. It also increased blob capacity, optimized the validator mechanism, and reduced network congestion. This cleared technical obstacles for aggressive staking activities by institutions like BitMine. More crucially, the Fusaka upgrade, implemented in December 2025, introduced PeerDAS (Peer-to-Peer Data Availability Sampling), fundamentally changing Layer 2 data storage. Full nodes no longer need to download all blob data, theoretically supporting more than an 8-fold increase in blob capacity. Layer 2 fees are expected to further decrease by 40-90% in 2026. EIP-7892 allows for dynamic adjustment of blob parameters in the future, enabling continuous expansion without hard forks—a systemic guarantee of long-term scalability. The roadmap extends to 2026 with even more aggressive measures. The anticipated Glamsterdam upgrade will introduce Verkle Trees, enshrined proposer-builder separation (ePBS), and block-level access lists, pushing Layer 1 TPS to over 12,000 and strengthening the MEV extraction mechanism, significantly improving network efficiency and yield capture capabilities. These technological advancements are not just theoretical—smart contract deployments and call counts have reached record highs, and on-chain activity has reached unprecedented levels. 4. RWA Monopoly: The Monopolist of a Trillion-Dollar Opportunity Ethereum's dominance in the real-world asset tokenization field is becoming the strongest narrative engine for 2026. This is not just self-congratulation within the crypto community, but a vote cast with real money by traditional financial institutions. According to the latest statistics from RWA.xyz, the total value (TVL) of tokenized assets on the Ethereum blockchain has reached $12.5 billion, representing a market share of 65.5%, far exceeding BNB Chain's $2 billion and Solana and Arbitrum's less than $1 billion each. Wall Street giants such as BlackRock and JPMorgan have already massively tokenized government bonds, private loans, and fund products on the blockchain. The RWA market is projected to grow by over 212% by 2025, exceeding $12.5 billion in total size, while institutional research shows that 76% of asset management companies plan to invest in tokenized assets before 2026. Institutions predict that the RWA market will expand more than 10 times in 2026. Ethereum, as the most mature and secure settlement layer, will directly capture the vast majority of the value of this trillion-dollar opportunity. The clarification of the regulatory framework—especially the CLARITY Act and the Stablecoin Act expected to be implemented in the first half of the year—will further accelerate this process. The stablecoin sector is also overwhelmingly bullish. Ethereum carries over $62 billion in circulation, accounting for over 62%, and 68% of DeFi TVL. Institutional-level scenarios such as B2B payments and cross-border settlements are rapidly migrating on-chain. An Artemis report shows that Ethereum stablecoin B2B payment volume will steadily increase between 2024 and 2025. This is not speculative capital, but a genuine demand from the real economy. In summary, considering the combined forces of supply, demand, and technology, Ethereum is highly likely to achieve a narrative reversal from &#34;follower&#34; to &#34;leader&#34; in 2026. This will be an institutionally driven structural bull market, rather than a speculative frenzy fueled by retail investor sentiment. For Ethereum's long-suffering followers, 2026 may be the year of reckoning. However, this is a possibility, not a certainty; patience and rationality remain essential in this brutal market.</p></div></div></div>

ETHE

<p>Entering 2026, the crypto market capitalization exceeds $3 trillion, with Ethereum at a pivotal moment, rebounding to over $3200. Key factors include a significant reduction in selling pressure from staking, with 900,000 ETH waiting to be staked, and institutional investments shifting from passive to active participation, notably by BitMine Immersion Technologies. Technological upgrades in 2025 have positioned Ethereum as a global settlement layer, enhancing its scalability and reducing fees. These developments suggest a potential structural rally for ETH, as institutions increasingly view it as a yield-generating asset.</p>

From Technology to Institutions: An Analysis of Ethereum's Four Core Turning Points in 2026