The inflow into the Ethereum ETF exceeded the issuance of new coins after The Merge.

# Inflow into the Ethereum ETF has exceeded the issuance of new coins after The Merge

Spot exchange-traded funds based on the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization in the US attracted $2.45 billion in a month, which is equivalent to approximately 500,000 ETH. Since the update of The Merge, the network has issued 456,723 ETH.

Source: SoSoValue. This week also saw a record influx — investors invested $2.27 billion in nine spot Ethereum ETFs.

Analysts at Standard Chartered Bank noted that demand is supported by "treasury" companies like BitMine and SharpLink. Since June, they have acquired 2.3 million ETH (1, 1.9% of the market supply ). During the same period, exchange-traded funds accumulated 3.8% of the issuance of Ethereum.

Standard Chartered predicted the price of Ethereum to be $7500 by the end of the year. According to experts, the company will continue its purchases and may increase its total holdings to 10% of the total coin supply.

BTC Markets analyst Rachel Lucas considers such accumulations to be strategic and long-term. According to her, this "removes significant liquidity from the market."

"When record inflows into ETFs are combined with corporate and sovereign investments, a deep structural demand arises amid limited supply. This is a recipe for sustainable price pressure and a sign that digital assets have firmly entered the global capital markets," she concluded.

As of the time of writing, Ethereum is trading at around $4750, approaching its all-time high of $4878 recorded in January, according to CoinGecko.

Activity in Ethereum

The average daily number of transactions on the Ethereum network remains close to its historical maximum, exceeding 1.8 million.

Source: Nansen. For comparison, L2 networks Arbitrum and Base processed over 3.4 million and 8.6 million transactions respectively during the same period. The competing first-layer blockchain Aptos recorded a figure of 3.8 million on August 11.

The number of active addresses in Ethereum has remained virtually unchanged since 2018, fluctuating between 400,000 and 600,000 with rare spikes above 1 million.

The decline in fees on the main Ethereum network has been observed since 2022. The situation was exacerbated by the Dencun upgrade in March 2024, which significantly reduced transaction costs for L2 solutions.

The upgrade encouraged users to switch to cheaper solutions to avoid high fees on the main network — during periods of congestion, they could reach $50 per transaction.

High-performance first-layer blockchains like Solana and Sui are also competing for market share and user attention. This forces the Ethereum Foundation to adapt to changes and revise the scaling roadmap.

The head of Polygon Labs, Marc Buaron, stated to Cointelegraph that attempting to directly compete with new L1 networks on metrics such as throughput could be "dangerous" for Ethereum.

The price of Ethereum will reach $15,000

Fundstrat predicted that the price of Ethereum will rise to $15,000 by the end of 2025. According to co-founder Tom Lee, the asset will become "the largest macro deal" in the next 10–15 years.

He emphasized that the development of artificial intelligence and the widespread adoption of blockchain technologies on Wall Street will contribute to this.

The head of digital asset research at Fundstrat, Sean Farrell, noted that the price of Ethereum could reach $12,000–15,000 by the end of the year, so "the growth potential is still significant."

Li explained that Wall Street's interest will be fueled by the upcoming regulation of stablecoins and the SEC's Project Crypto initiative aimed at modernizing the agency. He added that most "stablecoins" and projects from major financial companies are built on the basis of Ethereum.

The expert also pointed out that since the beginning of the year, Ethereum has outperformed Bitcoin in terms of returns: +28% compared to +18%, respectively.

The Connection Between USDC and the Future Growth of Ethereum

In the last month, Circle issued 5.5 billion USDC on the Solana network. According to Lookonchain analysts, the influx of new capital could be a catalyst for the price growth of Ethereum.

Want to know where the price of $ETH is heading? Watch the $USDC mints.

In the past month, #Circle minted 5.5B $USDC on #Solana!

Freshly minted $USDC means new money is flooding the market, a powerful catalyst for a higher price of major assets like $ETH.… pic.twitter.com/HfXa3pQyYk

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) August 14, 2025

"Want to know where the price of ETH is heading? Follow the issuance of USDC," advised Lookonchain.

Recall that the crypto trader under the pseudonym Yashasedu stated that the second largest cryptocurrency will reach $8500 if the price of Bitcoin exceeds $150,000.