Ethereum Soars Past $4.3K, Overtakes Mastercard’s Market Cap – Is $5K Next?

Ethereum just bulldozed through $4,300—and left traditional finance giants in the dust. With its market cap now eclipsing Mastercard’s, the crypto is flexing muscles even Visa would envy.

The breakout no one saw coming

While Wall Street analysts were busy downgrading tech stocks, ETH quietly assembled a rally that’s up 40% since June. The ‘flippening’ isn’t just about Bitcoin anymore—it’s about legacy payment rails getting outrun by smart contracts.

Liquidity tsunami or smart money play?

Traders are split: some see ETF inflows propping up the price, while others point to institutional accumulation (read: hedge funds front-running retail again). Either way, the $4K resistance didn’t just break—it shattered.

What’s next? A 20% surge to $5K looks plausible if ETH holds above $4.1K this week. But watch out—Mastercard’s C-suite won’t take this market cap snub lying down. Expect ‘blockchain innovation’ PowerPoints at their next earnings call.

Further, ETH is only 13% away from its all-time high of $4,878 in November 2021. Polymarket traders have predicted a staggering 96% probability that the price of ethereum will reach $4,400, while 76% probability that it will surpass its previous ATH to hit $5,000 before the end of the year.

ETH Price Would Rise Sharply in Coming Months: Analysts

Traders, institutional investors, and analysts are convinced that the current price surge could be the start of a larger, sustained rally.

According to technical analyst Lord Hawkins, Ethereum is breaking out of a textbook Wyckoff Accumulation pattern. This means that the recent price increase is a “Sign of Strength” (SOS) resistance zone, typically followed by a brief pullback to confirm the new uptrend.

If this pattern continues, ETH might enter a markup phase, pushing prices toward $6,000.

#ETH started a buy program. Could see $6k next pic.twitter.com/w8IUZrMDrw

Per analyst Titan of Crypto, ETH is “extremely bullish,” pointing to its breakout from a multi-year symmetrical triangle pattern. The triangle size shows a potential target of $8,000, explained analyst Crypto Rover.

According to Nilesh Verma, ETH shows a repeating pattern seen in 2017 and 2020. The crypto rallies sharply after retesting a major bottom support, he noted.

“Minimum $10,000, bull case $16k- $20k in next 6-8 months,” Verma predicted.

ETF Inflows, Whale Accumulation Pushes Prices Up

Besides, Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs) saw a total of $461.21 million of daily net inflows as of Friday, per Sosovalue data. This is higher than that of Bitcoin’s $403 million.

Further, whales are aggressively accumulating ETH, signalling strong bullish sentiment. According to on-chain analyst LookOnChain, a prominent whale accumulated 49,533 ETH, valued at $212 million on Monday.

“Over the past week, they have accumulated 221,166 ETH ($946.6 million) from FalconX, Galaxy Digital and BitGo,” it wrote on X.

Additionally, BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has bought 1,250 ETH for $5.29 million, alongside other altcoins, including Lido DAO (LDO), USDC and PENDLE.

Arthur Hayes(@CryptoHayes) bought 1,250 $ETH($5.29M), 424,863 $LDO($556.6K), 420K $ETHFI($516.6K), and 92K $PENDLE($507K) ~8 hours ago.https://t.co/1HymJRPhcjhttps://t.co/2jwxKhfl4D pic.twitter.com/lPoLgOl08f

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin currently holds 240,042 Ethereum, valued at around $1.01 billion, becoming an “onchain billionaire