Understanding the Factors Driving Ethereum's Price

Ethereum price is trending up again, and it's unpredictable whether it will dip soon or experience a steep rise. By Lucas Outcalt. Updated March 28, 2024.

The price of Ethereum (ETH) has been trending upwards again recently. Will it dip soon, or could we see a steeper rise in the coming days?

It’s no secret that bullish analysts have been predicting a breakout period for Ethereum this year, with some optimistic predictions placing the price as high as $10,000. However, others are still apprehensive about a possible "black swan" event that could quickly reverse the crypto market's bullish momentum.

Investors can make more informed trades by understanding the factors driving the price of Ethereum, including its technological upgrades, the dynamics at play within the market, and the macroeconomic pressures that have driven recent price volatility.

How Tech Upgrades Have Affected Ethereum Price

Ethereum has seen swift growth since its launch in 2015. Its initial coin offering (ICO) was just thirty cents, and it hit $1,400 in the 2017 bull market. Today, the platform's native crypto coin, Ether (ETH), is the second most popular cryptocurrency in the world after Bitcoin (BTC). This has happened because Ethereum was explicitly developed to support decentralized finance apps and smart contracts, and demand for NFTs and other uses of smart contracts continues to increase.

Ethereum has been able to capitalize on bullish investor sentiment because significant network upgrades have helped the blockchain keep up with demand. In September, the "Merge" (also dubbed "Ethereum 2.0") shifted the platform from a proof-of-work (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) model, bringing Ethereum faster transaction times with lower costs in computing power. Throughout 2024 and early 2025, Ethereum has also used a constellation of "Layer 2" technologies (such as the Cronos zkEVM chain) to reduce congestion and improve transaction speed by processing more transactions off-chain.

In 2025, Ethereum continues to pursue significant scaling upgrades, launching testnets in anticipation of its Pectra upgrade, which might reach Ethereum's main network this spring.

Ethereum's Market Dynamics: Staking Trends, Halving, and Whales

Ethereum secures its network with a consensus staking mechanism. Validators stake a quantity of Ether coin, which is then held as collateral and removed from circulation. Validators earn a percentage of the staked amount. Just over 29% of Ether coins are currently staked. Traders and investors need to follow this stake ratio. A higher ratio means less coin supply in the market, and that scarcity drives the price up.

Halving, the process by which Ethereum constricts the rate at which it is issued, also increases the coin's scarcity. Since the merger, Ethereum has been in a "triple halving event," triple because the impact of halving on Ether's scarcity is triple the impact of Bitcoin's halving events.

The other factor internal to the Ethereum blockchain is price manipulation. This happens most frequently in the form of a "pump and dump" scheme. In such a scheme, a blockchain "whale" will buy up a lot of the coin, "pumping" up the price quickly, motivating many smaller traders to follow suit in anticipation of a bull run. Then, the whale sells off their positions at that artificially high price, "dumping" the coin back onto the exchange. The whale walks away with the profits while the smaller traders take losses in a speedy price crash.

The Macroeconomic Pressures on Ethereum Price

Inflation, weak fiat currencies, and regulatory policies also impact Ethereum. Like Bitcoin, Ethereum is frequently seen as a hedge against a weak dollar. When the dollar is down or inflation is rising, more investors will invest in major cryptocurrencies, driving the Ethereum price up, similar to how investors start buying gold.

National and state policies also affect bullish or bearish sentiment. Ethereum's recent approval to issue exchange-traded funds (ETFs) increased the purchase of the coin by individual traders and large institutions eager to stockpile private reserves.

Meanwhile, while enthusiasm for promises of a federal cryptocurrency reserve initially drove up the price late last year and early this year, delays in fulfilling those promises and the defeat of several proposals for crypto reserves at the state level have created more uncertainty among traders. Cryptocurrency prices are very sensitive to both the news cycle and social media sentiment, and word of setbacks and delays in the adoption of crypto reserves has contributed to the March decline in Ethereum's price.

Key Indicators to Watch for Ethereum's Future Price Movements

Today, the Ethereum price is slowly rising again. As this article was written, Ethereum had rebounded to $2063.64 from its recent low of $1,755.57 on March 10. What happens next is uncertain, but to make informed trades, traders should watch Ethereum's staking ratio,