As Bitcoin approaches its all-time high, is Ethereum's surge merely a passive follow-up, or is it brewing a more independent ETH market trend?

In the past 24 hours, Bitcoin (BTC) has made a strong upward move of 3.7%, once again crossing the $110,000 mark and standing just a hair's breadth away from the all-time high set in May. Meanwhile, Ethereum (ETH) has also risen by 3.8%, rebounding above $2,620, demonstrating its correlation with Bitcoin.

However, the key question is: As Bitcoin approaches its all-time high, is Ethereum's rise merely a passive follow-up, or is it brewing a more independent ETH market trend?

Analyst: ETH Will Reach $10,000 Within a Year

Renowned cryptocurrency market analyst DCinvestor boldly predicted on social media that ETH will reach $10,000 or even higher within the next year.

He believes that the real driving force will no longer be the return of retail investors, as they may have been "brainwashed" and developed a bias against the true value of ETH, making it impossible for them to buy in again.

"Retail investors won't be coming back to ETH. They have been completely brainwashed by a 'psychological war' and believe that ETH is worthless. But they will have to watch ETH soar to $10,000, because corporations, governments, and Wall Street are pouring trillions of dollars into this chain," said DCinvestor.

DCinvestor compared this phenomenon to Bitcoin's 2017 cycle, pointing out that ETH's development is two cycles behind BTC but is steadily progressing. He emphasized that the new batch of market buyers will not care about the skepticism or "worries" in the market, as they may not even be aware of the existence of those "old-school" critics.

Continuous Inflow of ETH ETFs: A Clear Signal of Institutional Interest

The data doesn't lie. According to the latest report from CoinShares, since May 16, Ethereum-related investment products have led digital asset inflows for the second consecutive week, attracting $296.4 million in funds and bringing the total inflow over seven weeks to $1.5 billion.

CoinShares' Head of Research, James Butterfill, wrote, "This is the strongest inflow since the U.S. election," adding that this figure now accounts for 10.5% of the total assets under management in Ethereum.

Marcin Kazmierczak, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Redstone, pointed out that ETH's upward momentum seems to be driven by several factors: institutional ETF fund flows showing renewed interest in ETH products, and the growing market expectations for Ethereum's roadmap upgrades.

Meanwhile, the ETH/BTC market capitalization ratio has risen above 0.14, which is seen as a possible signal of a shift back towards "risk-on" altcoins, potentially an early "signal" of a broader altcoin season.

Boost from the Pectra Upgrade

Despite the relatively "dull" recent price movement of ETH, its fundamentals remain strong. The market's expectations for Ethereum's roadmap upgrades are high, and the Pectra upgrade completed last month (on May 7) has played a significant role.

CoinShares' Senior Ethereum Researcher, Luke Nolan, said that while the Pectra upgrade did not bring about any single major change, it included several improvements to the Ethereum protocol, laying the foundation for future scaling, which has long been Ethereum's main bottleneck.

One of the key features of the Pectra upgrade is the expansion of Ethereum's blockchain's ability to handle "blobs" (temporary data storage units), which helps retain more data on the consensus layer. Nolan believes that sometimes a small narrative is enough to drive positive sentiment.

Positive Technical Trends

From the Tradingview technical charts, Ethereum's current trend also shows positive signals. As of the writing of this article, the price has strongly rebounded from the May low to around $2,665 and is firmly standing above the weekly pivot point (PP, around $2,400-$2,500).

Below, the $2,483-$2,485 range forms immediate support, while the weekly pivot point and deeper Fibonacci support provide a solid foundation. Notably, the chart shows a potential "bullish flag" pattern, and a key "golden cross" has formed between the 50-day moving average and the 200-day moving average, both of which are strong bullish signals.

ETH's sustained accumulation above $2,520 indicates that short-term buying power is dominant. The key resistance above is at R1 (around $2,900-$3,000) and the historical high, so bulls are likely to continue pushing towards higher resistance levels in the near term. However, investors still need to closely monitor market trading volumes and breakthroughs at key levels to confirm the sustainability of the upward trend.