Ethereum surged past previous records on Sunday, hitting $4,957 before settling around $4,937, climbing 2.93% in just 24 hours, according to data from Binance. Roughly $57 million worth of positions vanished in a single hour, with over $53 million of that being short trades that got completely destroyed. The rally first got strong on Friday when Jerome Powell, speaking from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, said the Federal Reserve would likely cut interest rates next month. “With policy in restrictive territory, the baseline outlook and the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance,” Powell said. That one line was all it took. Leverage traders got steamrolled almost instantly. Everyone betting against Ethereum had to buy it back, and fast. Fed comments erase shorts, Ethereum explodes CoinGlass data tracked $120 million in Ethereum short liquidations in just one hour surrounding the speech, as leveraged short positions started collapsing when Ethereum surged too fast. Traders who borrowed to bet against it had to buy ETH quickly to limit their losses, which pushed prices even higher. That panic-buying loop crushed them. Meanwhile, Bitmine Immersion and SharpLink Gaming, two companies holding or accumulating ETH, both rallied hard—12% and 15%, respectively. Bitmine had just posted its first red week in three, falling over 7%, but flipped back green as Ethereum powered upward. On the other hand, ETHzilla, backed by Peter Thiel, collapsed. It nosedived more than 31% at one point during Friday’s session after the firm offered 74.8 million shares for resale. That move spooked traders. ETHzilla ended the day down 31.4%, tanking hard as Ethereum rose and Powell’s speech rattled sentiment. Elsewhere, DeFi Development, a treasury group tied to Solana, spiked 21% on the day. Coinbase and Strategy, often seen as a Bitcoin stock proxy, both tacked on 6%. Ethereum wasn’t the only crypto asset catching a bid, but it was leading the pack by a mile. Over the last eight weeks, Ethereum has become the center of the crypto market’s momentum. That momentum has been powered by institutional hunger for stablecoins. These tokens now account for 40% of all blockchain fees, and more than half of them run on Ethereum’s rails. That demand isn’t slowing. Ethereum’s role in the financial system is expanding fast, and big money knows it. Tom Lee, head of Fundstrat, put it like this on CNBC’s “Worldwide Exchange”: “Ether is the biggest macro trade over the next 10 to 15 years and a lot of it has to do with the fact that stablecoins have become the ChatGPT moment for crypto.” The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them .
