Ethereum (ETH) Price Eyes $2,800 after Vitalik Buterin’s 2024 Proposal

Key Insights:

• Ethereum (ETH) price soared to a new 2023 peak of $2,440 on Thursday, Dec 28 outpacing Bitcoin with the 10% 24-hour growth performance. 
• The rally came after Ethereum Co-Founder Vitalik Buterin released an article on Dec 27, outlining the ETH roadmap for 2024.
• Ethereum’s top 100 holder wallets were spotted acquiring 310,000 ETH in the aftermath of Vitalik Buterin’s latest proposal.
• Having breached the $2,400 resistance twice in the last 20 days, historical on-chain accumulation trends suggest $2,800 could be within reach. 

 

Ethereum (ETH) price broke above the $2,445 area last Thursday outpacing Bitcoin’s weekly growth performance. On-chain analysis explores how crypto whales react to Vitalik Buterin’s recent research article published by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin on Dec. 28. 

Having breached the $2,400 resistance twice in the last 20 days, is Ethereum now on a path to reclaim $2,500? 

Ethereum Price Bounced 10% after Vitalik Buterin Published 2024 Proposal

Ethereum price outperformed Bitcoin significant over the past week.At press time on Jan 1, ETH price sits just above $2,305, a 5% increase from the weekly low of $2,193 recorded on boxing day. Comparatively Bitcoin delivered a negative 2% performance during that period. 

While the BTC bulls struggle to reclaim the $43,000 territory, Ethereum’s market demand appears to have been boosted by a recent research article published by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin on Dec. 28. 

In the technical article, Vitalik proposes a method to reduce the current load on validators, theoretically reducing the number of required signatures by 70%, making the process “more quantum-resistant”. 

In concise terms, the 2024 proposal seeks to address centralization concerns, reduce fees and make staking more efficient to node validators. Recent on-chain data trends suggest that ETH largest investors have reacted positively to Vitalik’s latest proposal. 

Ethereum Top 2,000 Largest Holders Acquired $528M ETH Following Vitalik’s Article 

On paper, Ethereum price has outperformed BTC by 5% in the past week. But looking beyond the price charts, a vital on-chain indicator has revealed that ETH’s performance has been boosted by corporate entities and high net-worth investors who increased their buy pressure just after Vitalik’s article was published on Dec 27. 

According to Santiment, a prominent on-chain data tracker, the top 2,000 Ethreum wallets held just 65.16 million ETH in their cumulative balances as of Dec 26. 

But since Vitalik’s proposal, they have ramped up their buying spree, adding 310,000 ETH to bring their balances to 65,47 million ETH at press time on Jan 1.

Valued at the current prices of $2,300, the Ethereum Top Holder Supply chart above illustrates that the top 2,000 investors have added ETH coins worth $713 million to their holdings since Vitalik published the 2024 proposal 5-days ago. 

The Supply Held by Top Addresses metric is a real-time snapshot of the aggregate balances currently controlled by 2,000 largest Ethereum investors.

Intuitively, when largest stakeholders are increasing their balances rapidly by hundreds of millions, as observed above, it is interpreted as a strong bullish signal. 

Firstly, it stimulates market demand and shores up confidence among other retail investors.

But importantly, the timing also suggest that the stakeholders have reacted to positively to Vitalik’s article, with high hopes that the proposals are steps in the right direction. 

Given that large holders are often likely to HODL longer than small-holder swing traders, this accumulation wave among the whales put ETH in prime position to outperform BTC again in the week ahead. 

ETH Price Forecast 2024: Can Ethereum Reclaim $2,800?

Having breached the $2,400 resistance twice in the last 20 days, the Ethereum bulls are now likely to set their sights higher, above the $2,500 during the next rally.

IntoTheBlock’s Global In/Out of the Money chart, which uses the historical entry prices of current ETH holders to outlines potential buy/sell walls, also supports this ETH forecast.

It shows that the with ETH price currently trading at $2,300, 86% of all ETH holders are in profit positions. This alignment means that, relatively fewer ETH holders will be looking to take profits as ETH price climbs higher. 

Currently, the 10.6 million holders had acquired 5.16 million ETH at the minimum price of $2,406 pose the largest resistance. However, ETH is likely to enter an upswing toward $2,800 if it can break out decisively above that area. 

Alternatively, the bears could negate this bullish forecast if ETH price unexpectedly spirals below $1,900. But as seen above, 5.25 million investors acquired 45.23 million ETH at the average pric of $2,113. 

Given that this is the largest cluster of ETH current holders, Ethereum price is unlikely to drop below the $2,100 area in the short-term.