Ethereum Plunges Below $3K - But Analysts See $25K Target in Sight
Ethereum's brutal crash below the psychological $3,000 barrier has traders questioning reality—yet institutional analysts maintain their $25,000 long-term forecast.
The Disbelief Phase Takes Hold
Market sentiment hits extreme bearish territory as ETH breaks critical support levels. Retail investors panic-sell while whales accumulate positions quietly in the shadows. Technical indicators scream oversold, but fundamentals tell a different story entirely.
The Road to $25K
Ethereum's ecosystem continues expanding despite price action. Layer-2 solutions process record transactions, institutional adoption accelerates, and the network's deflationary mechanism burns tokens faster than miners can produce them. The math simply doesn't support current prices long-term.
Wall Street's favorite new toy—until the next shiny object appears. Meanwhile, Ethereum's actual utility keeps growing while traditional finance chases the next quarterly report.
Fear Could Be Presenting An Opportunity
With the ethereum price still trending low, crypto analyst Sporia believes that this could be a good time for the price to bounce. Firstly, the analyst points to the fact that crypto market sentiment has not been bad since the COVID crash of 2020. Interestingly, though, the Bitcoin price had been below $10,000 back in 2020, and now, it’s trending between $80,000-$100,000, and this sentiment is this low.
With the Fear & Greed Index hitting new yearly lows and falling into Extreme Fear, everything may look bleak. However, Sporia opines that this could be a time for opportunity, especially for meme coins like Ethereum. The price has already seen a major crash, sending it below $2,700, but there are still factors that show this might be a good opportunity.
For one, the crypto analyst pointed out that the Ethereum price has just finished Wave 2 of its Elliot Wave Count. This means that the altcoin is now headed into Wave 3, a bigger bullish trend than the Wave 1 that sent its price above $4,900 earlier.
With Wave 3 yet to begin, the analyst believes that the ethereum price has not hit its peak. Rather, this is more of a stopgap, and the real move is coming. Sporia expects ETH to cross the 5-digit threshold, predicting 2026 to be a very bullish year.
How High Can The Ethereum Price Go In 2026?
By the time the third wave is completed, Sporia expects that the Ethereum price will have climbed as high as $11,000. This bullish run is expected to end sometime in May 2026, leading to the next wave. Wave 4 is a bearish wave and the analyst expects Ethereum to crash ~50% as a result. However, this crash is expected to be only temporary.
The final and most bullish wave of all, Wave 5, will follow after the Ethereum price finds its bottom with the ~50% crash. Once established, this wave will push the price toward new peaks, with the low-end target placed at $18,000 and the high-end at $25,000.
As for the timeline for this, the crypto analyst predicts that all of this will play out by the last quarter of 2026, or into the first quarter of 2027. “No breakout yet, but notice the deep pullbacks it always has right before the eventual clean break higher. We’re following the exact same script,” Sporia said.
