TLDR

  • Ether has dropped 36% in 2026 and 60% from its 2025 high, currently trading close to $2,000
  • Ethereum accounts for 57% of total value locked (TVL) across blockchains, jumping to 65% when layer-2 networks are included
  • Big institutions such as BlackRock, JP Morgan, and Deutsche Bank are still developing projects on Ethereum
  • Vitalik Buterin is advocating for base layer scalability improvements, including ZK-EVM
  • ETH bounced back more than 6.5% following US strikes on Iran, recovering from a low of $1,841

Ether has declined 36% in 2026 so far, trading just below $2,000 after hitting a weekend low of $1,841. The $3,000 mark seems far off at the moment.

Ethereum (ETH) Price

ETH has lagged behind the wider crypto market by 9% in the first two months of 2026. Macro factors alone can’t fully account for that gap.

Decentralized exchange (DEX) volumes on Ethereum fell to $56.5 billion in February 2026, down from an August 2025 peak of $128.5 billion. Solana’s volumes reached $95.5 billion that same month, maintaining pressure on Ethereum’s claim of strong network activity.

Even with the price decline, Ethereum holds 57% of total value locked across all blockchains — roughly $52.4 billion. Including layer-2 networks such as Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism pushes that share up to 65%.

Solana’s TVL is $6.4 billion. BNB Chain has $5.5 billion. No rival has matched Ethereum’s locked value.

Institutions Still Choosing Ethereum

Citi, Deutsche Bank, and BlackRock have all recently launched on-chain projects on Ethereum. From tokenized funds to bank-issued stablecoins, the network is still the top choice for institutional decentralized finance (DeFi).

Ethereum also has a 68% market share in Real World Assets (RWA). While BlackRock sold $41.8 million in Ethereum this week, ETH ETFs still recorded $80.5 million in inflows during the same timeframe.

Buterin’s Scalability Push

Vitalik Buterin has stated he wants to cut reliance on rollups by improving the base layer directly. Planned updates include parallel block verification and a zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (ZK-EVM).

Quantum-resistant signatures are also on the roadmap. Buterin has admitted these are larger and more difficult to verify, but notes that protocol-layer aggregation improvements can lower costs.

These changes will be implemented slowly, starting with a small part of the network before becoming required.

For prices, ETH rose more than 6.5% in 24 hours after US military strikes on Iran caused a short market panic. Bitcoin fell to $63,000 before recovering to around $67,000. ETH dropped to $1,841 before bouncing back toward $2,000.

Experts caution that more volatility could occur when US equity markets and Bitcoin ETFs start trading again on Monday, as ongoing Middle East conflict adds uncertainty.

ETH ETF inflows hit $80.5 million this week.