Ether rises 15% on large corporate buying and hopes for faster network upgrade

Ether has climbed 15% in the past five days, pushing the token back toward $2,000 as steady corporate buying and expectations for an Ethereum network upgrade support demand.

The move began after Ether bounced from a June 26 low of $1,500 and was changing hands in the $1,800 range on July 7. Over the past month, ETH has outpaced the wider digital-asset market by 7 percentage points, based on total crypto market capitalization.

BitMine Immersion Technologies has been a key buyer. The company added another 325,000 ETH over the past month, bringing its total holdings to 5.74 million ETH. BitMine is still pursuing its target of controlling 5% of Ether supply, even as it sits on roughly $8 billion in unrealized losses.

That buying has helped firm support around $1,500. For traders, it matters because large, persistent purchases can absorb selling pressure and give the market a clearer floor, even if the broader trend remains fragile.

Sentiment has also improved around Ethereum’s next upgrade. Glamsterdam, now in testing, is meant to speed up the network through parallel transaction processing and larger data capacity. The upgrade is also aimed at building infrastructure better suited to institutional financial services.

Robinhood added to the constructive tone on July 2 by launching Robinhood Chain, an Arbitrum-based Ethereum layer-2 network. The brokerage also began tokenized stock trading in more than 120 countries and added integrations with Uniswap, 1inch and Morpho.

Derivatives traders, though, are still cautious. On Deribit, Ether’s put-call skew is 9%, down from 15% a week earlier, which suggests fear has eased but has not disappeared. A reading above 12% is typically treated as extreme fear.

For now, the level to watch is $2,000. A clean move above it would extend the rebound, while a slip back toward $1,500 would put BitMine’s buying and the broader upgrade trade back under pressure.