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Ether (ETH) trades at $2,367.54, up 4.9% on the day, per TradingView data at the time of writing.
The daily candle opened at $2,325.60, reached a high of $2,378.74, dipped to a low of $2,324.39, and closed near session highs, extending a move that has pushed ETH’s price up more than 24% over the past week.
All 14 moving averages (MAs) TradingView tracks for ETH now sit below the spot price as support, a complete sweep that hasn’t happened in months.
The nearest is the Hull MA at $2,350.42, just $17.12, or 0.7%, below the current price, while the furthest, the 100-day simple moving average (SMA) at $1,863.11, sits 27% lower. That spread matters: A rally strong enough to clear every level at once, rather than grinding through them one at a time, tends to reflect a supply-side event, not steady accumulation.
The oscillators confirm the move has run hot. The relative strength index (RSI) reads 85.39, and Stochastic RSI sits at 100.00, both about as stretched as the indicators go, while Williams Percent Range at negative 2.70 is nearly pinned to its ceiling.
Yet the average directional index (ADX), the measure of trend strength itself, reads only 26.40, just above the 20 threshold that separates a trending market from a directionless one. That gap, oscillators screaming exhaustion while the trend indicator shows only moderate conviction, suggests the move has been fast rather than broadly confirmed, a distinction worth watching into the next session.
The rally’s composition is more interesting than its size. Santiment data shows wallets holding more than 1,000 ETH shed roughly 1.7 million coins between May 20 and Aug. 20, about 2.9% of that tier, while the 1-to-10 ETH tier gained share of total supply over the same window, rising from 4.38% to 4.52%.
The largest ETH wallets have been shrinking for three months.
🐋 Wallets holding more than 1,000 ETH shed roughly 1.7M coins between May 20 and Aug 20, about 2.9% of that tier.
📈 The 1 to 10 ETH tier gained share over the same window, from 4.38% to 4.52% of supply, rising on 65… pic.twitter.com/Ml4TnS0L3x— Santiment Intelligence (@SantimentData) August 20, 2026
ETH held on exchanges fell from about 7.07 million to 6.54 million coins across the period. Santiment notes only around 300,000 of the missing 1.7 million can be traced into smaller wallet tiers, meaning most of it likely moved into staking, bridges, or contract addresses rather than smaller individual holders.
That distribution hasn’t stopped. A whale deposited 5,250 ETH to Binance five hours before this review, a move CoinGecko’s news feed characterized as signaling profit-taking, happening in the middle of the same rally driving today’s price action.
Santiment’s account of the mechanism is specific: Crowd sentiment on ETH hit a three-month low on Aug. 17, and ETH was up roughly 17% just two days later.
The company’s “eth_whale_dump” anomaly faded sharply across three weeks, from five events totaling $46.6 million to five totaling $18.7 million to a single $7.55 million event by Aug. 18, right as the US Treasury expanded long-end bond buybacks and a record wave of short liquidations followed.
Crowd sentiment on ETH hit a three-month low on Aug 17. Two days later ETH was up about 17%.
📉 Weighted sentiment, 7-day average, fell to its lowest reading in at least three months on Aug 17, and turned negative.
🐋 Our eth_whale_dump anomaly fired once on Aug 18, at roughly… pic.twitter.com/qLOw9dFUAp— Santiment Intelligence (@SantimentData) August 20, 2026
The institutional side tells yet another story. BitMine added 37,696 ETH over the past 30 days, now holding 5,815,164 ETH, 4.819% of total supply, according to its investor press release.
CoinGecko’s feed also flagged banks increasing Ether exposure three times faster than Bitcoin (BTC) exposure over the same stretch, a genuine split between large individual wallets distributing and corporate treasuries accumulating into the same rally.
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