Ethereum News Today: Nearly 200M Wallets, ETF Outflows & ETH Price Prediction

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Welcome back to the Daily Crypto Deep Dive. Ethereum should be having a much better year than this. That is the strange part. Because if you only looked at the infrastructure story, Ethereum still looks like one of the most important networks in crypto. It has DeFi. It has staking. It has stablecoins. It has layer 2s. It has tokenization. It has institutional attention. It has almost 200 million non-empty wallets. It has major analysts still talking about huge long-term upside. And it remains one of the main places people look when they talk about the future of blockchain-based finance. But if you look at the price chart, the story is completely different. Ethereum is trading around the $1,600 area after falling around 14% from its June high near $1,890.
It is also still roughly 66% below its 2026 peak near $4,800.
So the obvious question is this. If Ethereum's network keeps growing, why is the ETH price still so weak? That is what we are breaking down today. Before we get into it, this episode is brought to you by Kraken. If you're buying, selling, or holding crypto, Kraken gives you access to major assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP on one of the most established crypto platforms in the market. And remember, if you sign up to Kraken using the link in the episode description and make a qualifying trade, we'll send you 20 XRP as a thank you for supporting the show.
Only invest what you can afford to lose. Crypto is risky, and this is not financial advice. But if you're planning to use Kraken anyway, use the link in the description. Support Crypto News Today, and we'll get that 20 XRP sent over to you.
Ethereum right now is one of the clearest examples of the biggest problem in crypto. The infrastructure can be improving, the network can be growing, the long-term story can still be strong, but the price can still lag badly when liquidity, sentiment and flows are not on its side. Now let's start with the positive side of the Ethereum story. According to Santiment Data, Ethereum is getting close to 200 million non-empty wallets. The network has nearly 195 million non-empty wallets, which is about 230% more than Bitcoin's roughly 59 million non-empty wallets. Santiment said Ethereum is now only around five million wallets away from the 200 million milestone, and the analytics firm pointed to DeFi, staking and wider on-chain use as signs that the network continues to grow.
That is not a small number. 200 million non-empty wallets is a serious adoption signal. It does not mean 200 million individual people are using Ethereum every day, because one person can have multiple wallets. But it does show that Ethereum remains deeply embedded in cryptoactivity. The network has history, liquidity, developer depth, applications, stable coins, smart contracts and institutional relevance. And this is where the bull case begins. Ethereum is not just trying to be digital money. It is trying to be the settlement layer for digital finance. That means DeFi, stable coins, tokenized assets, on-chain lending, on-chain trading, real-world assets, corporate validators, and the real-world asset market. Layer 2 settlement. And potentially, machine-to-machine payments if AI agents and automated software systems start using blockchain rails. That is why some analysts are still extremely bullish. Tom Lee, the head of research at Fundstrat and chairman of Bitmine, has made one of the boldest Ethereum predictions in the entire market. Speaking at the Proof of Talk conference in Paris, Lee said Ethereum could eventually reach $250,000 if AI, tokenization, and corporate validator adoption drive the network into a multi-trillion-dollar role in global finance. He also argued that current prices represent future optionality at a discount. Now, let's be clear. A $250,000 Ethereum target is extremely aggressive. That is not my base case. That is not something anyone should treat as guaranteed. But the reason it matters is because it shows how some institutional crypto bulls are thinking about Ethereum. They are not just looking at today's chart. They are looking at Ethereum as financial infrastructure.
Tom Lee's argument is basically this. If financial assets, AI systems, tokenized markets, and automated payments increasingly need blockchain rails, Ethereum could become one of the networks where huge amounts of value settle. He has also pointed to corporate validators as a major shift, arguing that large public companies could become important Ethereum network stewards over time. Then you have more traditional analyst targets. CoinGecko's summary of institutional forecasts shows a wide range of 2,026 Ethereum targets. Citi's more cautious target sits around $3,175.
Standard Chartered's target is around $7,500.
Fundstrat's internal research reportedly points to around $4,500 by year-end 2026
And more aggressive voices like Tom Lee have publicly talked about $7,000 to $9,000 or higher.