Ether has just clocked its best monthly return in three years, surging 56%, with one analyst calling it akin to a โ90s tech stockโ on the back of strong recent ETF inflows.ย
ETH is currently trading at $3,862, which is significantly higher than its July 1 opening of $2,468, according to CoinGecko.
This marks the first time that Ether has given a monthly return of 50% or more in a single month since July 2022, when ETH surged by 56.62%, according to CoinGlass.
Eric Balchunas, Bloombergโs Senior ETF Analyst, attributed ETHโs recent price performance to the net inflows seen across spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
โEther Starting to Look Like โ90s Tech Stock as ETFs Catch Fire,โ Balchunas wrote in an X post.
He further compared Ether to โfledgling tech stocks in the โ90s,โ in terms of accelerating adoption and network growth, which is differentiated from the โnew goldโ narrative of Bitcoin.
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Ether ETF inflow streak hits 19 days
Spot Ether ETFs have been on a 19-day net inflow streak this month, matching their longest streak in history.ย
From July 3 to July 30, funds in the category have raked in more than $5.37 billion. The highest net inflow was recorded on July 16, where net inflows across all funds stood at nearly $727 million.
Last week, BlackRockโs iShares Ethereum ETF became the third-fastest ETF to hit the $10 billion milestone, as the fund managed to achieve this feat in just 251 days.
Meanwhile, in a rare instance, net inflows into Ether ETFs far exceeded net inflows into Bitcoin ETFsย for six straight days in July.
Ethereum activity lagging, says analyst
While ETH has rallied in price, not everyone is excited about the level of activity taking place at a protocol level.
โWhen we look at the actual revenue thatโs being generated on the Ethereum network, itโs very low,โ 10x Research CEO Markus Thielen told Cryptox, adding that Ethereum revenue has not gone up in any meaningful way in the past six months.ย
In the past month, network activity is up only 5% and revenues are only up 3%, according to Thielen. Additionally, he observed that 90% of the price action in the past month is coming from the Asian time zone.
He recalled November 2021, when Ethereum generated $1.5 billion in revenue in a single month on a market capitalization of $300 billion. This extrapolates to an annual yield of 6%, which could be attractive to institutional investors.ย
The story is far different now, with Ethereumโs market capitalization at $466 billion, while its yearly revenue is only $764 million, according to Token Terminal.
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