Ethereum Blitzkrieg: Analyst Sees Just the Beginning of Crypto Rally
Last week's crypto rally was more than just a short squeeze, according to Milk Road analyst John Gillen. He argues that Ethereum (ETH) is the key asset for everything that follows.
The surge in prices can be attributed to two events hitting crypto order books at the same time: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's bond buyback announcement weakening the dollar and Donald Trump publicly naming Hyperliquid at the White House, which lit the fuse for the move. Bitcoin (BTC) surged roughly 24%, while Ethereum jumped 32%, with $4 billion in shorts liquidated along the way.
Gillen notes that smart money had already positioned before the move, citing Paul Tudor Jones raising his IBIT stake by 18.9% and VanEck's Matthew Sigel actively accumulating. Citigroup (C) also announced Bitcoin custody before year-end, while Jim Cramer sold his Bitcoin in early August, which Gillen called one of the clearest counter-indicators available.
Ethereum is considered the settlement layer for everything that comes next, with ETF inflows hitting $1.92 billion for the week, the largest since the October 2025 crash. The tokenized real-world asset market has grown from $2.3 billion three years ago to $44.5 billion today, with Ethereum holding 65% of that market across 35 competing chains.
Macro investor Jordi Visser expects Ethereum to outperform Bitcoin this year because TradFi can value it like a stock using cash flow, yield, and network effects from stablecoins and tokenization. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev wrote on X that the world is in the early innings of a global tokenization supercycle.