Ether’s meteoric rally to $3,600 on Thursday is unlikely to retreat as long as two key macro conditions continue to hold, a hedge fund executive says.
“All the hard data that arrived this week argues against a rapid reversal,” crypto hedge fund ZX Squared Capital partner Felix Xu told Cointelegraph on Thursday.
ETFs are booming, and Fed uncertainty is bullish for Ether
Xu pointed to the growing inflows into US spot Ether ( ETH ) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) as a significant catalyst for Ether’s continued price uptrend, pointing to Wednesday’s $727 million inflows , the largest single-day inflow since Ether ETF trading began in July 2024.
“Those coins go straight into cold custody and are, by definition, not available for immediate resale,” Xu said. He also pointed to the uncertainty around the US Federal Reserve as another bullish catalyst for Ether.
“Macro conditions are mixed rather than toxic,” he added. Xu explained that while June’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) did “tick higher,” ongoing pressure from US President Donald Trump on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is increasingly bullish for crypto.
“Trump keeps urging the Fed to slash rates by up to three percentage points, a reminder that policy risk still tilts dovish for risk assets,” he said.
“Unless both ETF inflows abruptly stall and the Fed turns sharply hawkish at the same time, the probability of a full retrace like the 30 % wash-out of October 2024 looks low.”
Ether is trading at $3,609 at the time of publication, up 43% over the past 30 days, according to Nansen.
However, Xu says the chances of Ether hitting $10,000 by the end of this year are slim, despite forecasts from several analysts.
“A $10K target implies a 190% move in a little over five months — something ETH has achieved only twice, during the 2017 frenzy and the 2020-21 DeFi boom,” Xu said.
Ether $10,000 price tag may be “a stretch”
That kind of move is a stretch,” he added, but said the possibility is open as long as strong ETF inflows continue, staking is added to the Ether ETF, investor sentiment shifts to a more risk-on environment, and Ethereum gains wider adoption as a network:
“Accelerating real-world use of the Ethereum stack: restaking, booming layer-2 rollups, and fresh application verticals that lock more ETH out of circulation and tighten supply.”
“Should any of those engines stall, the rally could top out well short of five digits, but if they fire in unison, a surprise sprint to $10K can’t be ruled out,” he said.
Echoing a similar sentiment, Sapien co-founder Trevor Koverko told Cointelegraph that a $10,000 per Ether price tag is speculative but not entirely off the table.
Related: Ether holding $3K opens door to 1,100% ‘vertical phase’ rally: Analyst
“It’s an ambitious move, but not impossible to assume that ETH could even approach a $10k valuation if we continue to see strong macro tailwinds, broader ETF adoption, and the continued narrative shift toward Ethereum being the backbone of the next financial system,” Koverko said.
“ETH feels a lot less like a speculative bet now versus a programmable digital asset,” he added.
Cointelegraph recently reported that crypto trader Mikybull Crypto forecasts Ether’s price to top somewhere between $7,000 and $10,000, based on the RSI index.
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