Ethereum Value Reconstruction: The Ecological Cold and Hot Disconnection Behind a 97.7% Rise

Ethereum rebounded from a low of $1385 to $2700, showing a 97.7% rise, which reflects the differentiation in the capital markets. Institutional funds remain cautious in the ETF market, while the open interest in derivatives contracts has reached a historic high of $32.2 billion. The market seems to hope that this rebound will prove that Ethereum is still a value pit, while the Pectra upgrade also supports this view. Through an in-depth analysis of various data related to Ethereum, we can see an Ethereum that is gradually emerging as it undergoes a value reconstruction.

Market and Funds: Caution of ETFs Coexists with Enthusiasm for Contracts

As of May 18, the total net assets of the US ETH ETF reached $8.97 billion, accounting for 2.89% of the total market cap of Ethereum. In contrast, the Bitcoin ETF accounted for 5.95%, indicating a higher preference for Bitcoin in the ETF market. From February to the end of April, Ethereum ETF funds were mostly in outflow, until April 21 when they began to flow back in, but the overall inflow data was not significant. In April, the net inflow for the Ethereum ETF was approximately $66.25 million, and so far in May, the net inflow is about $30 million.

At the end of April, Ethereum's "Net Unrealized Profit/Loss" (NUPL) value turned positive, after being negative from April 1 to 22. At that time, the price of Ethereum fell below $1800, reaching a low of $1385, indicating that most holding addresses were in a state of loss. As of May 17, NUPL reached a peak of 0.328, indicating the early stages of a bull market or recovery, and has not yet entered an extremely optimistic phase.

It is worth noting that the number of addresses on the Ethereum chain with a balance greater than 1 decreased during the price rebound, while this data continued to rise during the previous price decline, indicating that many investors chose to buy the dip during the downtrend. After the price rose to $1800, some addresses opted to take profits, but the decline was minimal, about one-thousandth. As the price has rebounded, the proportion of profitable addresses on Ethereum has now reached 60%.

Although there is still a distance from the historical high, the contract open interest has recently reached a record high. On May 14, the open interest for Ethereum contracts reached $32.249 billion, close to its all-time high. The last time it reached this level was between January and February 2025, when the price of Ethereum fluctuated between $3,000 and $3,800. This indicates that the market is still keen on speculating on Ethereum.

Overall, Ethereum has experienced a positive inflow of funds since the price bottoming out at the end of April, followed by a significant price rise, with a maximum increase of 97.7%. However, in terms of the amount of funds flowing in, especially from ETFs, the proportion of traditional institutional funds has still not increased significantly.

TVL rises, but low Gas has not activated trading volume

In terms of on-chain activity, the number of active addresses on Ethereum has not changed significantly, remaining between 400,000 and 600,000 daily. This trend has persisted for over a year. However, there is a recent trend in the fluctuation curve that shows a tendency to break through the 600,000 range.

The changes in TVL (Total Value Locked) data are more significant. The TVL in USD has rebounded since April 22, rising from around $45 billion to a peak of around $64.6 billion. However, considering the substantial rise in the price of Ethereum during this period, this change may not reflect the real situation on-chain. In terms of ETH quantity, since April 9, the amount of ETH staked on the Ethereum chain has noticeably decreased, from a peak of 30.26 million to a low of 24 million, a drop of 20%.

This phenomenon may be due to a reduction in token volume caused by some funds choosing to take profits or avoid unrealized losses during the rapid rise of Ethereum prices.

As of May 16, the average Gas price of Ethereum is 3.572 Gwei, a significant decrease of 21.57% compared to the previous day, and a sharp drop of 51.76% year-on-year. Over the past 30 days, Gas fees have generally shown a downward trend, briefly soaring to 10.61 Gwei on May 8, but have recently remained below 8 Gwei, reaching as low as 1.6 Gwei on May 3. This change is related to EIP-7691 in the Pectra upgrade, which aims to reduce L2 fees by expanding blob space.

However, the extremely low Gas fees do not seem to have stimulated the growth of on-chain transactions. The daily transaction volume data has not shown any significant changes.

DEX Trading and Asset Landscape: Dominance of Stablecoins and Ecological Transition

On-chain staking data shows that from April 15 to May 5, the staking volume of Ethereum has been continuously in a net outflow state. In particular, a certain trading platform has experienced a 30% outflow of staking over the past six months. Currently, the validator with the most staking remains Lido, with a staking volume of 9.11 million.

In terms of DEX trading volume, the Ethereum mainnet clearly enters an active period after 2025, with activity levels higher than in 2024, approaching the peak period from 2021 to 2022. However, from the revenue data perspective, the recent increase in trading activity mainly comes from stablecoin-related transactions, with USDT generating $568 million in fees on Ethereum in the past 30 days. As of May 18, Ethereum remains the largest public chain in terms of stablecoin issuance, accounting for over 50%, with a total issuance of $127.3 billion, which is twice the DeFi TVL of Ethereum.

Through the analysis of the categories of funds on the Ethereum chain, it can be seen that nearly half of the transactions are completed through stablecoins and ETH transfers. The proportion of stablecoin transactions has significantly increased, while the proportion of DeFi and ERC-20 token transactions has actually been declining. This indicates that Ethereum is transforming into a value storage center for on-chain assets, while the development of MEME and application types seems to be constrained. Therefore, Ethereum's strategy to boost activity by reducing transaction fees and improving transaction speed may be difficult to succeed.

In addition, although the average on-chain transaction amount of Ethereum has declined, it remains between several thousand dollars and 10,000 dollars, far exceeding other public chains. This highlights Ethereum's status as a chain exclusive to large holders.

Overall, the recent price rebound of Ethereum seems more like a result of the growing pains after its transformation period. On one hand, the Ethereum ecosystem is striving to optimize performance through continuous technological updates and upgrades, but the effects seem to be not very evident. On the other hand, it has become a hub for large fund and stablecoin transactions, and the big players seem to be satisfied with the relatively quiet on-chain state of Ethereum at the moment.

Therefore, the rise and fall of a single indicator has become difficult to simply define the advantages and disadvantages of Ethereum. The market may need to move beyond traditional growth narratives and reevaluate and understand Ethereum's core role and long-term value in a multi-chain landscape. Rather than judging whether it is "rising" or "declining," it is better to recognize that after various tumult and iterations, a more mature and "stable" Ethereum may be the inevitable direction and final form of its evolution.