Ethereum temporarily moves ahead of 2025
The historical figures immediately show the scale of the move. CoinGlass still had Ethereum at +60.62% since the start of the third quarter on September 13, below the +66.55% recorded in Q3 2025 but already above 2020’s +59.5%. The historical average for the third quarter was only 12.28%, with a median of 9.87%. This contrast recalls the risk of three consecutive negative quarters highlighted by Bref Crypto in June.
A few more days of gains then temporarily pushed the quarter’s return to around +67.89%, according to CoinGlass. At that level, 2026 has overtaken 2025.
But the ranking is still changing.
Ethereum was trading around $2,570–$2,600 on September 20, after touching $2,659 the previous day. Yahoo Finance showed a price close to $2,572 in the morning, while other platforms briefly saw ETH fall back below $2,600.
Every significant move through September 30 will therefore continue to change the final percentage.
The nuance matters because Ethereum had already experienced this situation in 2025. During that quarter, ETH reached a new high of $4,946 before ending September around $4,215. CoinGecko calculates a return of +68.5% for that quarter, compared with +66.55% from CoinGlass, showing that methodology and reference times can slightly alter the result.
The current record is therefore impressive.
It is not yet set in stone.
Three months ago, Ethereum was at risk of a much less glorious record
The reversal seems almost absurd when looking back at June.
Bref Crypto wrote at the time that Ethereum risked posting three consecutive negative quarters for the first time in its history. ETH was already coming off a negative fourth quarter in 2025. The first quarter of 2026 added a 29.26% decline, and the second quarter ended at around -25.28%.
Two consecutive negative quarters.
A drop of more than half from the highs.
Investors were beginning to ask whether Ethereum had lost its status as Bitcoin’s main challenger.
Then July arrived.
The math is brutal. An asset that loses 29.26% and then 25.28% does not simply return to its initial level with an equivalent gain. Percentages are not symmetrical. The further the price falls, the larger the rebound required to recover the losses.
That is precisely what makes Q3 so impressive.
Ethereum is not merely posting a strong quarter after six difficult months. It is rebuilding some of the ground destroyed by two consecutive corrections.
The psychological context has also changed completely. In the spring, the question was where the bottom was. Tom Lee and BitMine were already arguing that a floor was becoming credible. Bref Crypto detailed that scenario as early as March.
Six months later, the debate is no longer about whether support will hold.
It is about a quarterly record.
ETFs have fundamentally changed the profile of demand
The rally is not driven solely by crypto traders.
U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs are now a structural source of demand. As of September 18, Farside Investors recorded approximately $13.17 billion in cumulative net inflows since these products launched, despite the significant historical outflows from Grayscale’s former ETHE.
BlackRock accounts for a large share of this momentum. Its ETHA ETF showed more than $12.8 billion in cumulative inflows in Farside’s data. The product still attracted $148.8 million on September 11 and $80.5 million three days later.
Flows obviously do not rise in a straight line.
September 15: approximately -$142 million.
September 16: -$224 million.
September 17: another -$39 million.
Inflows then returned on September 18. Farside calculated approximately $29 million for that session at the time of its table, while other trackers that had incorporated more issuer filings put inflows at around $143.7 million.
This volatility in flows highlights something important. ETFs do not guarantee that Ethereum will rise.
Rather, they change the market’s depth.
A pension fund, financial adviser or investor who already has a brokerage account no longer needs to create a wallet, store a seed phrase and transfer money to an exchange. They can gain exposure to ETH just as they buy a stock ETF.
This difference seemed almost secondary in 2024.
Two years later, it is beginning to appear directly in Ethereum’s cycles.
BitMine added a second accumulation engine
The second institutional force comes from treasury companies.
BitMine has become the most spectacular example. At the beginning of September, the company held more than 5.9 million ETH, or approximately 4.9% of the circulating supply, according to data reported by Bref Crypto. It had just added another 53,501 ETH after a long accumulation streak. This concentration was already one of the major changes observed on Wall Street in early September.
This creates a phenomenon that barely existed during previous Ethereum cycles.
In 2020, DeFi was the main engine.
In 2021, it was NFTs, trading and the broader crypto boom.
In 2025 and 2026, Ethereum now has several categories of institutional buyers capable of absorbing a significant amount of supply: ETFs, treasury companies and traditional investment vehicles.
This demand also has a downside.
BitMine is extremely exposed to the price of ETH. Bref Crypto recently estimated its unrealized losses at around $5.1 billion, despite the scale of its reserves. A company holding nearly 5% of the supply is therefore not merely a structural buyer. It also becomes a significant concentration point.
Tom Lee himself had begun discussing the possibility of slowing purchases once the symbolic target of around 5% was reached. The change in tone was already perceptible in June.
Ethereum is therefore benefiting from new demand.
It is also becoming more dependent on its pace.
The move back above $2,500 is changing the market structure
Price is obviously the most visible data point.
At the beginning of September, Bref Crypto identified $2,500 as one of the levels Ethereum needed to reclaim to confirm its recovery. BTC needed to retake $82,000, ETH $2,500 and XRP $1.45. Ethereum was then trading around $2,450.
ETH has since broken through that zone several times.
On September 18, the move accelerated. Ethereum rose from around $2,447 to more than $2,611, with an intraday high near $2,644. The following day, the market reached nearly $2,660 before pulling back.
Derivatives appear to have amplified part of the move. Several sources reported a short squeeze around the break above $2,600, with sellers forced to buy back their positions as the price accelerated.
That does not make the rise artificial.
It changes how it should be read.
A move driven solely by liquidations can run out of steam quickly once shorts have been cleared. To sustain the move, spot buying, ETFs and structural demand must then take over.
That is exactly what the final ten days of September will test.
Ethereum has rebounded enough to temporarily exceed its best historical Q3.
It still needs to retain some of that gain without relying on leverage.
The Fed arrives at the worst possible time for the record
The macroeconomic calendar is complicating the end of the quarter.
The U.S. Federal Reserve has just raised rates by 25 basis points, bringing the Fed funds target range to between 3.75% and 4%. Markets are already considering the possibility of further hikes before the end of the year.
For Ethereum, the problem is the same as for Bitcoin or technology stocks.
ETH does not guarantee any dollar-denominated return.
Staking can provide a return denominated in ETH, which distinguishes it from Bitcoin, but the asset is still competing with U.S. Treasuries capable of offering several percentage points of yield with much lower volatility.
A Treasury yielding 4% or 5% forces institutional investors to be more selective.
Why take ETH risk?
The answer may be ecosystem growth.
Tokenization.
Stablecoins.
DeFi.
Staking.
Or simply an expectation that the price will rise.
But that answer must now compensate for a much higher opportunity cost.
ETF flows over the past week already show this nervousness. After $216.4 million in inflows on September 11 and $121.1 million on September 14, Ethereum products lost more than $400 million over the following three sessions before returning to inflows on Friday.
The quarterly record is therefore being contested precisely as the monetary backdrop becomes less favorable.
It could hardly be more unsettling.
It is an excellent test of whether the rally is truly holding.
The real achievement is having reversed the entire first half
Even if Ethereum ultimately does not finish September 30 above 2025’s +66.55%, Q3 2026 will remain exceptional.
By mid-September, ETH was already up +60.62%, almost five times its historical average performance for a third quarter. The average Q3 return since launch is around 12.28%, with a median below 10%.
The contrast with the first half almost tells the whole story.
Q1: -29.26%.
Q2: -25.28%.
Then a third quarter that could approach or exceed +65%.
Ethereum has therefore gone from facing the risk of a third consecutive negative quarter to attempting a new historical record within a matter of weeks.
This does not automatically put ETH back at its all-time high. The August 2025 record of $4,946 remains far above the prices near $2,600 currently being observed. Ethereum can therefore post one of its best quarters on record while still trading at roughly half its ATH level.
The paradox matters.
An extraordinary quarter does not mean that all previous damage has been repaired.
It mainly means that the balance between buyers and sellers has changed abruptly.
ETFs have become more important.
BitMine and other treasury companies have absorbed supply.
Investors who were selling Ethereum in the spring have had to watch the asset recover more than 60% in a few months.
And shorts have just been violently shaken above $2,600.
Q3 2026 has therefore already changed the narrative.
What remains is to see the figure that will actually be entered into the history books on September 30.
If Ethereum finishes above CoinGlass’s 2025 figure of +66.55%, the record will then be official.
Before that date, +67.89% remains a provisional record.
After the first half ETH has just endured, that is already remarkable enough.
