Ethereum Price Set to Rally Past $4,000 Amid Strong Mainnet Growth

Highlights:

• Ethereum price has formed a bullish pennant pattern, signaling a potential breakout and upward momentum.
• Ethereum’s mainnet activity has surged, surpassing leading layer-2 networks like Arbitrum and Base.
• Ethereum faces resistance near $3,400, with a potential rally toward $4,300 if bullish momentum persists.

The crypto market displays mixed sentiment today, as the overall market capitalization surges to $3.02 trillion while the trading volume declines by 18% to $82 billion. Meanwhile, the largest altcoin by market cap, Ethereum, has seen a modest gain of 0.10% to trade around $2,958 over the past 24 hours. 

This latest bullish momentum coincides with the altcoin’s weekly decline of more than 10%. During this period, Ethereum traded in a price range between $3,400 and $2,900. Its market cap and trading volume stand at around $355 billion and $14 billion, respectively. 

Ethereum Bullish Pennant Pattern Suggests Potential Breakout

Cryptanalyst Philarekt has shared an interesting insight regarding Ethereum price movement. Based on the analysis, Ethereum has formed a textbook bullish pennant formation on its monthly chart. This technical structure is usually a precursor to a notable price breakout.

This trend indicates that Ethereum is gaining momentum to the upside following a spell of consolidation. The chart indicates that ETH is within an ascending triangle with a robust trend line underneath. This consequently signifies that the market is on the verge of a blowout.

🚨 ETHEREUM BREAKOUT IS PROGRAMMMED$ETH JUST FORMED TEXTBOOK BULLISH PENNANT PATTERN

SEND IT HIGHER 🚀 pic.twitter.com/LqG6ggVzV5

— philarekt (@philarekt) January 24, 2026

As per the analysis, the breakout could propel the Ethereum price much higher. The price target provided by the analyst indicates that ETH may exceed the price of 4,000 and may continue to increase as the breakout gains momentum.

Ethereum Mainnet Surpasses Layer-2 Networks Amid Surge in Activity

The number of daily active addresses on the Ethereum mainnet has soared, exceeding the market leaders of layer-2 solutions. Active addresses reached their highest point at 1.3 million on January 16. However, this number has stabilized at 945,000 per day, as per Etherscan data. This growth comes after the Fusaka upgrade in December, which reduced gas charges by a significant margin. Analysts from Token Terminal noted “return to mainnet,” as the activity exceeded the networks such as Arbitrum, Base, and OP Mainnet.

🪃⛓️ Return to Mainnet@ethereum L1 outranks all leading L2s in terms of daily active addresses.

Interesting. pic.twitter.com/Nk7O5adWA5

— Token Terminal 📊 (@tokenterminal) January 22, 2026

However, experts caution that not all network traffic is organic. Security researcher Andrey Sergeenkov attributed some portion of the spike to address poisoning attacks, where spammers use small transactions to lure users into copying fraudulent wallet addresses. Due to reduced transaction costs, such attacks have become cost-effective, and the offenders can still make a gain even with a low conversion rate.

Technical Analysis: Where is Ethereum Price Heading to?

Looking at the technical analysis on the daily chart, Ethereum has been trading in a tight range between $3,400 and $2,600 since December. The price has formed several hikes but faced resistance around the $3400 region, leading to pullbacks. 

The support at $2,780 has held strongly following the recent broad market downtrend. Should the bulls continue with their journey further upwards, ETH could retest the current resistance and form a new rally toward the next resistance around $4,300.

Indicators such as the Relative Strength Index (RSI) and the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) suggest that the ETH price is held in the neutral region. The 14-day RSI is hovering around 39 levels, indicating that the selling pressure is high at the moment. Moreover, the MACD has turned bearish as the histogram shifts to the negative territory. The MACD line has dropped below the signal line, suggesting that if the current trend holds, ETH could drop further.