Ether gained 3% between Thursday and Friday, outperforming the broader crypto market, as Robinhood Chain momentum and surging real-world asset tokenization lifted sentiment. ETH pushed up to the $1,800 level, but weak onchain and derivatives data raise the question of whether a retest of $1,700 remains on the table.
Robinhood Chain Fuels Fresh ETH Demand
The newly launched Robinhood Chain layer-2 network, which uses ETH as its native gas token, has attracted $106 million in bridge deposits in its first week. Robinhood’s TradFi platform now offers tokenised stocks to customers across 120 countries, reinforcing the EVM-compatible ecosystem’s breadth.
Ethereum continues to dominate the broader real-world asset market with a 47% share, according to Rwa.xyz data. Notable tokenised products on Ethereum include SKY’s Tether Gold (XAUT), Ondo’s US Dollar Yield (USDY), and Franklin Templeton’s government bond fund (iBENJI). Among tokenised equities, Strategy’s STRCx from xStocks and Circle Group’s CRCLon from Ondo lead the field.
Leon Waidmann, head of Research at Lisk, flagged a striking valuation gap: for the first time in history, Ethereum’s Total Value Locked reached $260 billion, surpassing Ether’s market cap of $210 billion. Waidmann argued that ‘ETH is underpriced,’ noting the current relative valuation is lower than it was during the 2022 bear market.
Onchain and Derivatives Metrics Flash Caution
Despite the bullish narrative, underlying data paints a more cautious picture. Ethereum DApps generated only $11 million in weekly revenue, down sharply from $20 million in the first quarter of 2026. Sky led with $3.1 million, followed by Titan Builder at $2.4 million and Chainlink at $1.1 million. Active addresses on Ethereum fell to 3.2 million from 5.4 million in Q1, according to DefiLlama.
ETH perpetual futures annualized funding rates dropped to 3% by Saturday, well below the 6% neutral threshold. That compares with a peak of 12% recorded on Friday, suggesting that retail and leveraged bulls lack the conviction to sustain a breakout above $1,800.
BitMine Accumulation Offsets Bearish Signals
Arkham Intelligence identified a 20,500 ETH withdrawal on Thursday worth $36 million from Galaxy Digital to a new wallet, matching the pattern of previous purchases linked to Tom Lee’s BitMine Immersion (ticker: BMNR US). BitMine has added 198,370 ETH over the past 30 days alone, bringing its total treasury reserves to $10.3 billion.
The combination of strong institutional accumulation and structural tokenisation demand provides a floor, but stagnant onchain activity and soft derivatives positioning leave ETH lacking the momentum needed to decisively clear $1,800. On balance, the mixed picture argues against a retest of $1,700, particularly given BitMine’s accumulation pace.
