Ether fights to hold $4.3K as corporate ETH treasury growth, DApp activity provide hope
Ether traded slightly above $4,300 as the market absorbed a roughly 15% pullback from the Aug. 24 all-time high, leaving derivatives indicators cautious even while several on-chain metrics point to potential upside for ETH.
Network activity has shown notable strength: a reported 30% weekly surge in fees pushed Ethereum past Tron to become the highest-grossing chain by fees, with combined Layer-1 and Layer-2 fees reaching about $16.3 million compared with Solana’s $7.9 million. DeFi and DApp engagement also climbed, with August DApp fees on Ethereum totaling roughly $466 million — the chain’s second-highest DApp-fee month since February 2022 — and major contributors including Lido, Uniswap and Aave.
Derivatives markets show mixed signals. The monthly futures premium sat near 5%, a level described as neutral-to-bearish following the recent pullback, while aggregate futures open interest rose about 26% over 30 days to roughly $58.5 billion. Options skew remained around 3%, well inside a neutral band, indicating traders assigned similar probabilities to upside and downside moves in the near term.
Institutional and corporate interest appears to be growing: data cited in the report indicated corporations added approximately 2 million ETH to reserves in the past 30 days, and a set of named firms together hold about 4.71 million ETH (valued at more than $20.2 billion). Some corporate holders are beginning to deploy capital into Ethereum-based DApps, highlighting an expanding real-world use case for the network.
In sum, although derivatives and short-term price action reflect caution, rising network fees, stronger DApp activity and increasing corporate treasuries are presented as factors that could support a renewed bullish case for ETH in the coming weeks.
