Ethereum’s chart setup is bullish, suggesting that it will eventually clear ATH. However, a breakout to set new ATH may not be imminent. It seems unavoidable though.

RELATED – Ethereum price prediction 2025

Ethereum has been lagging Bitcoin since 2022.

That’s 3 full years of lagging price action.

Similar to XRP, which tested ATH in recent weeks, after 6 full years, there tends to be a trend which is that lagging eventually become leaders provided they have long term bullish reversal patterns.

Ethereum testing all-time highs

In order to understand the nature of the Ethereum chart, we need its weekly timeframe with our annotations (see below):

1. The weekly chart structure since 2022 is a bullish reversal, clear and clean.
2. The very long term rising trendline had confidently provided support, in each and every year since the big decline in 2022.
3. The Fibonacci levels, especially the 50% Fib level (fine purple line), has worked very precisely. This adds confidence to the bullish nature of this pattern.
4. The last touch of the 50% Fib level occurred on Aug 5th, 2024; ETH did not look back since then!

That’s a lot of ‘high confidence’ characteristics, and the bullish outcome seems unavoidable.

Ethereum – when will ATH be hit?

That’s a great question, obviously the million dollar question top of mind of every crypto enthusiast.

Let’s work with ranges here because identifying a fixed date for an altcoin to hit ATH seems too ambitious as a goal:

• Worst case – ETH needs to drop back to the long term rising trendline. In this case, it might hit $2,800 in Q1/2025.
• Base case – ETH needs to drop back to a key support level, the most obvious one being the 25% Fib level at $3,150, somewhere in the coming month(s).
• Best case – ETH is ready to move higher.

The $4,000 to $4,400 area will provide huge resistance. It won’t be easy to overcome this.

While everything is possible, it looks like some more bullish momentum is needed for ETH to clear this strong resistance level. The crypto market needs bullish momentum for ETH to convincingly clear ATH.

Ethereum (ETH) Testing All-Time Highs

So, what if we are too conservative?

Here is one viewpoint that is the exact opposite – ETH goes solo similar to 2021 or even 2018:

#Altcoins $ETH is the ticker.

24/25 vs. 20/21

And Altcoins usually follow at 10 times the speed. pic.twitter.com/wxXz8yQvGn

— @el_crypto_prof December 15, 2024

We believe it’s not fair to compare 2021 or 2018 with 2024/2025.

Market conditions are hugely different.

It’s not the same market.

It’s like comparing apples with… euh… cucumber. While both may be green, the form and taste are vastly different, impossible to compare.

Here is the point – every market cycle is different. Market dynamics 101.

Back in 2021, there was wide participation of each and every altcoin, a phenomenon not seen since then.

Early 2018, there was a steep drop in all alts, but ETH was growing fast, adoption pushed it quickly up again.

Will 2025 be similar or different?

Our best guess is different, but we are open to be proven ‘wrong’ – if ETH can enter the $4,000 to $4,400 area on some bullish momentum in crypto markets it might be ready to move to ATH – for now, there is not enough strength in alts nor on the ETH chart. This is subject to change though.