Arthur Hayes Sees Ethereum Blasting Off to $15K

Ethereum has been through a fairly long rough patch, spending much of its time below its all-time high (ATH) of US$4,891 (AU$7,591) which it had set all the way back in November of 2021 – yes, it was pandemic times when Ether last reached that high.

Now it appears the second-largest cryptocurrency is clawing its way out of that hole. ETH is currently trading at US$2,577 (AU$4,000), a plus of 67 per cent over the past month.

While Bitcoin is making new ATHs, traders and investors alike might be wondering if Ethereum will follow the big one’s path.

Related: Alpenglow Upgrade Promises to Increase Speeds on Solana by 100X

10k ETH Incoming, Says Maelstrom Chief

Crypto-veteran and former BitMEX CEO – now Maelstrom CIO – Arthur Hayes has some good news for you – ok, maybe not news, more like speculation, but we’re sure you’d want to hear about it anyway.

Speaking to the Bankless podcast, Hayes said he believes that a price tag of US$10k (AU$15.5k) or even US$15k (AU$23.3k) for ETH is not that outlandish at all.

Hayes didn’t provide a more detailed analysis of why ETH has rallied but instead pointed to market sentiment, saying “everybody thought it was dead […] the most hated coin goes up the fastest in the next cycle”.

He believes it’s all part of “human nature” and actually quite reasonable, as Ethereum was long due for a correction after being overshadowed by Solana and others.

ETH was kind of dead. Everyone hated it. The BTC/ETH ratio was falling, Solana was running […] it was time.

Arthur Hayes

Socials, Sentiment and ETF Flows: Ethereum’s Back Baby

Of course there’s also the recent Pectra upgrade boosting Ethereum’s network and “Vitalik becoming a little more active on social media”, as Hayes put it.

Optimism around the Pectra upgrade and the appointment of a new co-executive director at the Ethereum Foundation has certainly buoyed sentiment, while Vitalik Buterin’s recent blog post proposed both short-term fixes (like pruning old history) and a “partially stateless” node design to help scale without sacrificing accessibility.

Related: SEC Delays Several Crypto ETFs, Stalls on DOGE, SOL, XRP Filings

Ethereum-related investment products like the US spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have also seen an increase in demand recently, with solid net inflows reversing previous outflows.

The past three trading days alone saw over US$100 million (AU$155 million) in net inflows, with BlackRock’s ETHA taking in around half of that total.