Ethereum finds itself at a crossroads: builders are pushing meaningful scalability upgrades while big holders are quietly trimming exposure, creating a tug-of-war that’s shaping ETH’s near-term path as it trades above $3,200. What just changed on-chain - Developers activated the second Blob Parameter-Only (BPO) hard fork this week, lifting the blob limit from 15 to 21 and the blob target from 10 to 14. Each blob is a 128 KB temporary data container used mainly by rollups to batch transactions, so the network can now process roughly 2.6 MB of blob data per block. - The BPO series is part of a broader strategy to scale Ethereum via layer-2s and rollups rather than forcing all activity onto the main chain. Since the first BPO fork in December, fee volatility has eased as rollups shift more data off-chain. - Conversations are already underway about further capacity increases: proposals include a gas limit increase from 60 million to 80 million, and ultimately to 200 million under the planned “Glamsterdam” hard fork in 2026, which is expected to introduce parallel transaction processing and materially boost throughput. Staking and supply dynamics - Institutional staking is changing Ethereum’s supply picture. BitMine’s latest deposits pushed its total staked ETH to nearly 780,000 tokens—worth more than $2.5 billion at current prices. - Network-wide, more than 1.3 million ETH are queued to enter staking, while the validator exit queue has fallen to zero. That imbalance indicates fewer validators are choosing to leave the network even amid price swings. - As more ETH is locked up in consensus contracts, circulating supply on exchanges continues to fall, a trend that can dampen downside pressure over the medium term. Whales take profits - Offsetting some of those bullish supply dynamics, large holders have been net sellers. Wallets holding between 100,000 and 1 million ETH sold roughly 300,000 ETH over three days—about $970 million—using the recent price strength to realize gains. - That selling coincided with ETH breaking out of a multi-week descending wedge, suggesting some whales used the rally as a liquidity window. Long-term holders have largely stayed put, helping stabilize price structure, but continued distribution by whales could sap upside momentum. The outlook Ethereum’s fundamentals are improving—meaningful scaling milestones and growing staking adoption—but market forces are injecting near-term uncertainty. Watch these signals closely: - Blob usage and L2 data throughput (are rollups filling the new capacity?) - Exchange balances and staking inflows (is circulating supply continuing to fall?) - Whale wallets and large transfers (is selling persistent or one-off profit-taking?) - Progress toward Glamsterdam and gas-limit changes Bottom line: protocol-level upgrades are stacking up to support higher capacity and lower fees, but whether demand can absorb renewed rallies depends largely on a handful of large holders and trader sentiment. Keep an eye on on-chain metrics as upgrades and capital flows play out. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

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