Hours after breaking past $4,900, Ethereum ( ETH) tumbled by nearly 7% to $4,415, causing its market capitalization, which had edged closer to $600 billion when ETH surged to a new all-time high (ATH) of $4,955 on Aug. 24 (2:05 p.m. EST), to decline to just above $529 billion.

ETH’s sharp pullback was a symptom of a broader bearish sentiment that swept across the market, causing bitcoin ( BTC) and most other high-cap altcoins to endure significant losses within 24 hours. BTC, which had enjoyed a rally after U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s dovish Jackson Hole speech, tumbled to $110,584, marking its lowest price point since July 10. Despite the sharp drop, the top cryptocurrency managed to stage a recovery, climbing back above $112,000 at the time of writing (Aug. 25, 1:38 p.m. EST).

In the broader market sell-off, other high-cap altcoins also experienced significant losses: XRP plunged by 4.3%, SOL (6.8%), DOGE (8.9%), and SUI (9.1%). Even LINK, one of the best-performing altcoins of the past seven days, saw its value drop by 8%.

According to Coinglass liquidation data, ETH’s tumble alone wiped out $221 million in long positions over 24 hours, a clear sign that the digital asset’s sharp pullback caught many traders by surprise. During the same period, nearly $45 million in shorts were also liquidated, bringing the total liquidations on ETH to $266.36 million.

Despite this volatility, investor sentiment toward ETH remains bullish, as evidenced by reports of whales offloading their BTC holdings to buy ether. In one curious case, a bitcoin OG that reportedly received 100,784 BTC seven years ago spent the last six days “frantically dumping” the top crypto for ETH. According to a post on X by Lookonchain, the OG has in the past five days offloaded ~22,769 BTC on Hyperliquid and used the proceeds to buy 472,920 ETH spot and opened a 135,265 ETH long position.

The volatility has also not stopped institutions from piling in, with Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) announcing on Aug. 25 that it had snapped up 190,500 more ETH tokens to bring its total holdings to 1.71 million ETH. Bitmine Chairman Thomas Lee remarked on the attributes that have enabled his company to secure significant funding for the second week running.

“This is the second week that BitMine has been able to raise capital from institutional investors at this pace, as we pursue the ‘alchemy of 5%’ of ETH. At BitMine, we are leading our crypto treasury peers by both the velocity of raising crypto NAV per share and by the high trading liquidity of our stock,” Lee stated.

A growing consensus among experts suggests that the escalating trend of institutions adding ETH to their digital asset treasuries, coupled with sustained inflows from exchange-traded funds, signals a strong upside potential for the digital asset. With the $5,000 price point now appearing to be a certainty, many supporters of Ethereum are setting their sights on $10,000, a milestone that would push ETH’s market capitalization well past the $1 trillion mark.

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