History Rhymes? Ethereum Sentiment Matches Pre-Rally Conditions

[Ben Graham]

Ethereum’s social buzz has cooled to levels some analysts compare with the period before last year’s powerful rebound, but experts say that doesn’t automatically mean another big surge is imminent.

Sentiment Mirrors Past Lows

According to Santiment analyst Brian Quinlivan, social media sentiment around Ethereum has slipped and now sits near the low range seen before the 2025 rally.

Quinlivan suggested that the decline in chatter “argues against us falling too much further,” and he pointed out that price has often climbed after strong public doubt.

On Aug. 23, Ether hit a fresh all-time high of around $4,900, a move that followed a recovery from a yearly low near $1,470 in April, based on CoinGecko data.

That rally pushed the token back above its 2021 high. Since then, Ether has retreated about 36% from the peak and was trading at $3,089 at the time of the reports.

Market Shock And Liquidity Events

Reports have disclosed that a mass liquidation on Oct. 10 triggered close to $20 billion of losses across the crypto market, and that event is linked to the more recent pullback. The liquidation hit many positions and was followed by a broader risk-off mood.

Crypto fear gauges have been low. One index posted a Fear score of 29 on Sunday, while the Altcoin Season Index shows a Bitcoin Season score of 34 out of 100 — a reading that points to money flowing into Bitcoin rather than into altcoins over the past 90 days. That mix of metrics is being watched closely by traders who size positions on sentiment shifts.

Network Activity And Staking Interest

Quinlivan also highlighted on-chain signals he finds positive. According to his view, activity on Ethereum’s network has been rising, and staking has drawn more attention from users.

Increasing bandwidth is safer than reducing latency

With PeerDAS and ZKPs, we know how to scale, and potentially we can scale thousands of times compared to the status quo. The numbers become far more favorable than before (eg. see analysis here, pre and post-sharding…

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) January 8, 2026

Meanwhile, Vitalik Buterin has joined the public conversation about technical upgrades. Buterin said in an extended X post that PeerDAS, which arrived with the Fusaka upgrade, along with zero-knowledge proofs and sharding, will push Ethereum toward much higher throughput.

He added that layer-2 networks like Base, Polygon, and Optimism will still be needed because many use cases demand speeds that are even quicker than mainnet.

Institutional Views And Market Positioning

Based on reports, Coinbase Asset Management president Anthony Bassili said in November 2025 that investors tend to view Bitcoin first and Ethereum second when building a core portfolio.

That stance reflects how many large investors now treat Ether as the default number-two market cap asset rather than as a fringe bet. With that status, downside expectations can be smaller than for riskier tokens. Still, sentiment can remain low for long stretches, and being ranked highly does not remove volatility.

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView