Just saw a bombshell data point: the amount of Ethereum held on exchanges has dropped below 9 million, marking the lowest level since ETH was launched in 2015.

This isn’t just ordinary retail investors shuffling positions—this is whales and institutions playing a game of “draining liquidity.” A massive amount of ETH is leaving trading platforms and moving into staking pools and DeFi protocols, where it’s locked for the long term. Simply put, there’s not much “spot” ETH left on the market that can be sold at any time.

What’s even more explosive is what’s happening on Wall Street. US banks have recently announced that, starting in 2026, over 15,000 of their financial advisors will be able to directly recommend Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF products to high-net-worth clients. They’re also explicitly advising clients to allocate 1%-4% of their assets to crypto. What does this mean? Trillions of dollars in traditional finance finally have a compliant entry point, and institutionalization isn’t just a trend anymore—it’s happening right now.

With radical changes happening on both the supply and demand sides, Ethereum’s value narrative is being rewritten. A long-anticipated major cycle seems to have all the conditions in place.

**Supply Side Story: Inventory Bottoming Out + Long-term Lockup**

The continuous crash in ETH reserves on exchanges essentially reflects a shift in market consensus—from short-term speculation to long-term holding. There are three core drivers accelerating this process.

First, institutions are making staking a standard. After Ethereum’s switch to PoS, the 3%-4% stable annual yield, combined with the ecosystem’s growth potential, has turned ETH from a speculative asset into an income-generating one. For institutions, this is a new option in asset allocation. Data shows that by mid-2025, the amount of staked Ethereum