Ethereum (ETH) Price: Whales Add 320,000 ETH as Large Transfers Jump 500%

TLDR

• Arthur Hayes says ETH could reach $5,000 within about a year because of Robinhood Chain.
• ETH trades near $2,650 and would need a gain of close to 89% to hit that target.
• Analyst Ali Charts reports that large holders added more than 320,000 ETH in one week.
• US spot Ether ETFs took in $689.8 million over five straight sessions.
• About 1.61 million ETH is waiting to enter staking, compared with 161,000 ETH waiting to exit.

Ethereum’s price could reach $5,000 within about a year, according to Arthur Hayes. The BitMEX co-founder made the prediction at EastPoint: Seoul 2026.

Ether traded near $2,650 when Hayes spoke. A move to his target would require a gain of close to 89%.

Hayes is chief investment officer at Maelstrom. He pointed to Robinhood’s decision to build its blockchain on Ethereum. “Robinhood has started a new narrative for Ethereum,” he said.

He argued that other large financial firms can now point to Robinhood when they make the case for building on Ethereum.

Robinhood Chain and Whale Activity

Robinhood launched its chain’s public mainnet on July 1. It is an Ethereum Layer 2 built with Arbitrum technology, and it uses ETH as its native gas token.

By August, the chain had recorded nearly $9 billion in total decentralized exchange volume. Bitquery counted 597 million transactions on the network through Sept. 3.

Large holders have also become more active. Crypto analyst Ali Charts shared on X that Ethereum transactions worth more than $1 million jumped from 1,202 to 7,113 over the past week.

That is an increase of nearly 500%. Large transactions can include transfers between exchanges and custodians, so the data alone does not confirm buying.

In a separate post, Ali Charts said large wallets added more than 320,000 ETH over the same period. Those holdings are worth about $864 million at current prices.

US spot Ether ETFs recorded $689.8 million in net inflows from Sept. 21 through Sept. 25. BlackRock’s ETHA led with $326.2 million, and Fidelity’s FETH took in $174.1 million.

The five straight days of inflows reversed about $140.6 million in outflows from the week before.

Ethereum Price Faces Resistance Near $2,800

ETH rallied from around $2,400 in mid-September. On Sept. 23, it reached an intraday high near $2,789 before falling to $2,648.

Ali Charts also posted a chart showing a supply zone between $2,722 and $2,822. More than 13.3 million ETH was previously traded in that range.

According to the analyst, the next resistance levels above that zone are $2,970 and $3,366. Even a break above $2,800 would leave ETH about 40% below Hayes’ target.

After the pullback, ETH stayed above its 4-hour 50, 100 and 200-period moving averages.

Staking demand has stayed high. Validator Queue data on Sept. 28 showed about 1.61 million ETH waiting to enter staking, compared with roughly 161,000 ETH waiting to exit.

Around 43.5 million ETH is now staked, equal to 35.66% of supply. New validators face a wait of almost 28 days to join.

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