Ether has just clocked its best monthly return in three years, surging 56%, with one analyst calling it akin to a “90s tech stock” on the back of strong recent ETF inflows.
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, Bloomberg’s Senior ETF Analyst, attributed ETH’s recent price performance to the net inflows seen across spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
“Ether Starting to Look Like ’90s Tech Stock as ETFs Catch Fire,” Balchunas wrote in an X post.
He further compared Ether to “fledgling tech stocks in the ’90s,” in terms of accelerating adoption and network growth, which is differentiated from the “new gold” narrative of Bitcoin.
Related: Despite record high, S&P 500 is down in Bitcoin terms
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.
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, BlackRock’s 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 ETFs 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.
“When we look at the actual revenue that’s being generated on the Ethereum network, it’s very low,” 10x Research CEO Markus Thielen told Cointelegraph, adding that Ethereum revenue has not gone up in any meaningful way in the past six months.
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.
The story is far different now, with Ethereum’s market capitalization at $466 billion, while its yearly revenue is only $764 million, according to Token Terminal.
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