Ethereum spiked above $2,700: Will it hit $4,000 this year?

Is a crypto bull market underway? 

One of Ethereum’s biggest proponents, Tom Lee, chairman of publicly traded Ethereum treasury firm BitMine Immersion Technologies, thinks so. 

Lee highlighted the capital rotation from AI investments back to crypto and strengthening crypto fundamentals as key reasons his firm believes a stronger crypto market is in full swing. 

Kalshi traders are beginning to price in more upside for ETH too, making odds that the second-largest crypto asset hits $4,000 by the end of the year 23%, a gain of about 7% in the last week of trading. 

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The improved odds for Ethereum’s end of year price action have been buoyed by the asset’s recent run. ETH has gained more than 10% in the last week of trading, recently changing hands at $2,746, a level it hasn’t held since January. 

While Ethereum surged to a new all-time high of nearly $5,000 in 2025, for the majority of 2026 ETH has been trading well off its all-time high marker, falling as low as $1,566 in June, according to data from CoinGecko.  At that time, Kalshi traders made odds of it slipping below $1,500 as high as 95%. 

But as the crypto market has rebounded and ETH has steadily climbed above $2,700, traders price odds of a slip below $1,500 at just 11%.

Instead, traders have become increasingly optimistic about Ethereum's near-term price movements. 

Odds for ETH to reclaim $4,000 before the end of the year have jumped to 23%, and odds of a more conservative move, like ETH eclipsing $3,500, is now priced at 35%. 

This repricing seems to mirror the bullishness of Lee and his firm, which added another 27,562 ETH worth nearly $76 million to its balance sheet earlier this week. 

“Given institutions have underweighted crypto in 2026, partially due to the outperformance of AI stocks in early 2026, we expect institutions to substantially increase their exposure in the final 3 months of 2026,” Lee said in a Monday statement. 

“We believe this could add meaningful upside to the gains seen since June 30th,” he added. 

Further gains may be afoot in September too, according to Kalshi traders. Traders have improved odds for ETH to reach $3,000 during the final days of the month, now priced at 20% at the time of writing. On Sept. 20, those same odds were priced at 10% as ETH stalled around $2,570. 

While Kalshi traders have repriced odds for ETH to reclaim important price milestones like $3,000 and $3,500, they do not think it is very likely to reach a new all-time high marker of $5,000 before the end of the year.

Odds for ETH to hit $5,000 before the year concludes, which would exceed its previous all-time high of $4,946, are just 11%. 

As ETH fell into the $1,500 range during June, Kalshi traders made odds of it finishing the year with a positive return just 13%. 

Fast forward to today and as the price has nearly doubled from its June lows, odds of a positive year have more than tripled: now priced at 44%. 

ETH opened the year around $3,000 and to get back to that marker it will still need to add and maintain another 9% gain as the year draws to a close. As it stands, traders price odds of the ETH price finishing between $3,000 and $3,249.99 at 11.0%, the fourth most likely final range when the year concludes. 

The only three ranges with higher odds are all below the $3,000 marker, which would disqualify the asset from positing a positive yearly return. 

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