Ethereum rebound outperforms market amid strongest performance since 2021

Ethereum closed September with its most robust quarterly performance in over four years, echoing the explosive gains last seen when its price first breached the $4,000 threshold in early 2021.

According to CoinGlass data, ETH rallied 48.7% in July and 18.8% in August, before losing ground in September with a modest 5% pullback.

Ethereum Price Quarterly Returns Since 2021 (Source: CoinGlass)

Even with that dip, the token ended the quarter up 66.6%, hitting an all-time high of $4,953.73 in August on the back of steady accumulation by corporate treasuries and renewed retail activity.

That momentum has spilled into October. CryptoSlate data shows Ethereum climbed another 4% this week to touch $4,300, a multi-week peak, supported by a broader rally that lifted Bitcoin and XRP.

What drove Ethereum’s price rally in Q3?

The most significant driver of Ethereum’s rally during the reporting period was the throng of institutional investors in the digital asset.

This is evidenced by the strong inflows into the nine US-based spot ETH ETF products between July and August, when they attracted fresh capital of around $10 billion. During this period, BlackRock’s ETHA vehicle crossed the $10 billion assets-under-management threshold, making it the third-ever ETF to hit the milestone in one year.

At the same time, corporate treasuries have sharply expanded their ETH exposure. During the quarter, corporate ETH holdings climbed from around $2 billion to over $23 billion, making the digital asset the fastest-growing treasury crypto in the industry.

Considering these aggressive purchases from these institutional investors, Bitwise’s Matt Hougan had predicted in July that:

“ETPs and ETH treasury companies [could buy] $20 billion of ETH in the next year, or 5.33 million ETH at today’s prices.”

Meanwhile, institutional flows were not the only driver of ETH’s strong performance in the quarter.

In the third quarter, Ethereum’s on-chain activity surged, reflecting its central role in the DeFi sector.

CryptoQuant analyst Darkfrost noted that transaction counts, which hovered between 900,000 and 1.2 million daily over the past four years, have now broken out to record highs of 1.6–1.7 million.

Ethereum On-chain Transactions Count (Source: CryptoQuant)

That growth tracks closely with ETH’s price action, reinforcing the view that network activity directly supports valuation.

Token Terminal data paints a similar picture by pointing out that applications built on Ethereum, such as stablecoins, DEXs, and real-world assets, currently hold about $355 billion in user assets. At the same time, ETH trades at roughly 1.44 times the ecosystem’s total value locked (TVL).

Ethereum DeFi and Market Cap (Source: Token Terminal)

According to the firm, the market capitalization of tokenized assets on Ethereum has consistently set a floor for ETH’s valuation.

So, as more assets, from stablecoins to tokenized treasuries, enter the chain, ETH’s market cap rises in tandem. This relationship suggests that Ethereum’s growth is not just speculative but grounded in expanding on-chain utility.

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