• Ethereum is testing the $2,140 level after an intraweek low near $2,070.
• A technical breakdown raises the risk of a sharp decline to $1,350, CryptoQuant notes.
• Bullish catalysts could include regulatory clarity and continued institutional demand.

Ethereum (ETH) briefly traded back above the $2,100 level on Wednesday after gaining about 1% over the past 24 hours as Bitcoin reclaimed the $77,200 mark.

While the rebound offered some relief for bulls, the altcoin remains under pressure following a sharp weekly decline.

Technical indicators continue pointing to elevated downside risk, with some analysts warning that ETH could face a deeper correction toward the $1,350 level.

Ethereum price today

Market data during the US session on Wednesday showed Ethereum testing the $2,140 zone after rebounding from intraweek lows near $2,070.

The rebound followed several sessions of heavy selling, although ETH remains well below recent swing highs.

Ethereum is currently trading nearly 7% lower for the week and roughly 28% lower year to date.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is hovering near oversold territory, which may suggest conditions for a short-term relief bounce.

However, ETH continues trading below all major moving averages on the daily chart, signaling that bearish momentum remains dominant.

Could ETH fall to $1,350 after a bearish breakdown?

One of the primary concerns for bulls is Ethereum’s breakdown below the support trendline of a triangle pattern.

The latest sell-off confirmed the structural breakdown on the daily chart, raising concerns that price action could mirror a similar technical failure earlier this year.

At the time, Ethereum’s price declined sharply from the $2,800–$3,000 range, falling roughly 35% over several days in February. If similar market conditions develop again, analysts warn that selling pressure could intensify further.

Analysts at CryptoQuant highlighted the downside risk in a recent market note.

“If Ethereum fails to reclaim the broken triangle structure, selling pressure could accelerate further, and price may target the $1,350 support level,” CryptoQuant author and analyst Pelin Ay wrote.

Macro conditions and weakening market flows have also added pressure to Ethereum’s price outlook.

Ethereum’s recent weakness has tracked Bitcoin’s broader lack of momentum, with BTC slipping toward the $76,000 area in recent sessions.

Meanwhile, spot Ethereum ETFs have recorded seven consecutive days of net outflows.

Persistent outflows have increased concerns that the recent technical breakdown could develop into a more prolonged downtrend.

Contrasting views and potential support levels

Not all market participants remain bearish on Ethereum’s longer-term outlook.

Bitmine’s Tom Lee said the recent pullback could represent a “buy low” opportunity, particularly as Bitmine’s treasury holdings now exceed 4.37% of Ethereum’s circulating supply.

Some bullish investors continue pointing to longer-term catalysts, including stablecoin growth on Ethereum, increasing staking adoption, and expanding interest in tokenized real-world assets (RWA).

Market participants are also monitoring regulatory developments that could influence broader institutional adoption trends over time.

In the near term, traders will closely watch whether buyers can push ETH back above the $2,200–$2,400 resistance zone.

Failure to reclaim that range could expose the token to another decline below $2,000, with some analysts identifying $1,350 as a possible downside target.

TLDR

• Vitalik Buterin outlined new Ethereum upgrades aimed at enabling native onchain privacy for users.
• The roadmap includes account abstraction FOCIL and keyed nonces to improve transaction confidentiality.
• FOCIL introduces validator-enforced transaction inclusion to reduce the risk of censorship on the network.
• Account abstraction allows Ethereum accounts to function like smart contracts with enhanced security and flexibility.
• Keyed nonces make it harder to link transactions by replacing the single sequential nonce system.
• The access layer proposal focuses on protecting user data during blockchain queries through tools like Kohaku.

Vitalik Buterin on Wednesday detailed new privacy-focused upgrades planned for Ethereum. The proposals aim to bring private transactions directly onchain instead of relying on third-party tools. The update outlines three initiatives designed to improve privacy across transactions, accounts, and data access.

Vitalik Buterin outlines Ethereum Privacy Roadmap

Buterin shared the update in a technical post on X that described near-term privacy improvements. He focused on making private transactions a native feature of Ethereum.

The proposals include account abstraction, FOCIL, and keyed nonces. Each initiative targets a different layer of user privacy on the blockchain.

FOCIL, or fork-choice enforced inclusion lists, aims to reduce transaction censorship. It allows validator committees to require block builders to include specific transactions.

If builders ignore these transactions, the network can reject their blocks. This mechanism increases the likelihood that private transactions get processed.

Account abstraction upgrades how user accounts function on Ethereum. It allows accounts to act like smart contracts with features such as multi-signature approvals.

It also supports social recovery and flexible fee payments. Users can allow apps or third parties to cover transaction costs.

Ethereum Privacy Upgrades Target Transactions and Data Access

Keyed nonces address a tracking issue linked to Ethereum accounts. Current nonces increase sequentially, making it easier to connect transactions to the same user.

The new system introduces a nonce key and nonce sequence structure. This setup allows multiple independent transaction counters for a single account.

A researcher known as soispoke.eth said it “gives transactions independent replay domains.” This reduces the ability to trace activity across the network.

The third initiative focuses on access-layer privacy. It targets how users interact with blockchain data through RPC providers.

Wallet queries currently expose user IP addresses and activity patterns. These interactions can reveal identity links even if transactions remain private.

A toolkit called Kohaku aims to solve this issue. It enables private data queries using methods like private information retrieval.

Kohaku allows nodes to respond without knowing what data users request. This limits exposure of user behaviour to external providers.

The proposals come as the Ethereum Foundation undergoes internal changes. Several high-profile departures have occurred during a shift in its organisational role.

Privacy-focused crypto assets have also seen strong market performance. Zcash has risen over 800% since early last year, while Monero has gained more than 100%.

Bitcoin has declined by over 5% during the same period. None of Ethereum’s proposed privacy upgrades is live yet, according to the latest update.

Plume has obtained a digital asset business license from the Bermuda Monetary Authority, making it the first regulated on-chain vault manager and giving the real-world asset protocol a formal place inside one of crypto’s best-known regulatory regimes.

Plume announced the approval in an official post on X, where it said the Bermuda Monetary Authority had granted it a digital asset business license and called the milestone a first for on-chain vault management. The license gives Plume a regulated foothold in Bermuda as the jurisdiction pushes deeper into tokenization and blockchain-based financial infrastructure.

The development matters because Plume is not a generic Layer 1 pitch anymore. In a public letter to the Bermuda regulator, the company argued for an “activities-based, outcomes-focused” framework for asset tokenization, making clear that it was pushing for formal rules around how tokenized assets are issued and managed.

Plume has also been expanding the operating side of that strategy. In crypto.news coverage of its Genesis mainnet, the company said an earlier alpha phase had already seen more than $150 million in real-world asset capital deployed on-chain.

Bermuda deepens its on-chain push

Plume’s arrival under the Bermuda framework places it in the same regulatory orbit as firms such as Circle and Coinbase, which were central to the government’s plan for a fully onchain national economy. That initiative was also detailed by Circle, which said Bermuda wanted to become “the world’s first fully onchain national economy” with support from both companies.

The implication is obvious: Bermuda is trying to build not just a friendly licensing venue, but a genuine operating environment for regulated on-chain finance. Kraken has also been part of that digital asset ecosystem, with Binance noting that the exchange launched derivatives trading in Bermuda under a BMA license.

Why the license matters

For Plume, the approval strengthens its attempt to occupy a narrow but valuable category: compliant on-chain asset management for tokenized real-world assets. The protocol’s public materials describe Plume as a blockchain built to bring real-world assets on-chain and make them usable in DeFi, rather than leaving them as static representations disconnected from market utility.

That strategy has appeared consistently across its rollout. Crypto.news coverage of tokenized real estate has pointed to a market that Deloitte expects could reach $4 trillion by 2035, while a separate crypto.news interview detailed Plume’s ambition to scale tokenized real estate to that same level. Bermuda’s license does not prove the model works at scale, but it does give Plume something most on-chain vault protocols do not have: regulatory legitimacy attached directly to the vault business itself.

Dollar stablecoin supply has held at 99% of the global market as non-dollar tokens stall at 0.24% share.

The European Central Bank noted in late 2025 that dollar stablecoin tokens account for approximately 99% of total stablecoin supply in circulation. Non-dollar supply has grown sharply over five years but its market share has edged down, not up.

The combined supply of euro, Canadian dollar, yen, Singapore dollar and other non-USD stablecoins reached $771 million in April 2026, up from $261 million in May 2021, yet their share of the total market sits at just 0.24%.

The gap reflects a structural problem, not a regulatory one. Dollar stablecoin issuers can plug into US Treasury markets as a reserve base, with tokenized US government debt standing at roughly $15.4 billion on-chain. Tokenized non-US government bonds total just $1.4 billion.

That yield and liquidity advantage allows dollar issuers to fund distribution and partnerships that non-dollar rivals cannot afford to match.

Why the European push is not closing the gap

“This infrastructure is essential if Europe is to compete in the global digital economy whilst preserving its strategic autonomy,” said Howard Davies, chairman of Qivalis’ supervisory board.

Qivalis, a pan-European banking consortium, expanded to 37 banks across 15 countries in May 2026, more than tripling its membership. Its euro stablecoin is not expected to launch until the second half of 2026.

A separate group of twelve European banks selected Fireblocks for a competing MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin earlier this year. Nine banks including UniCredit and ING are also targeting a second-half 2026 debut. Multiple regulated euro stablecoin projects are in motion, but none has yet reached meaningful scale or liquidity.

What it would take to shift the balance

The primary obstacle is not regulation. Most fiat currencies lack international liquidity in the first place, meaning only a handful can realistically support a global stablecoin.

The dollar, euro, yen, sterling and Swiss franc are among the few with deep enough foreign exchange markets to support cross-border crypto use.

S&P Global Ratings has projected that the euro stablecoin market could grow from roughly $895 million today to as much as 1.1 trillion euros by 2030. Reaching that figure would require a combination of institutional adoption, regulatory clarity, and the kind of deep liquidity infrastructure that took dollar stablecoins years to build.

Former CFTC chair Timothy Massad says a US CBDC ban cannot stop behind-the-scenes infrastructure work.

Former CFTC chair Timothy Massad told London’s Digital Money Summit on May 19 that a US digital dollar is ultimately inevitable. He said the CBDC ban is politically sensitive but does not reflect activity behind closed doors.

“We don’t have a central bank president who is going to get out there and speak about wholesale or retail CBDC, but that does not mean that we are not looking at how to create one,” Massad said.

Why Massad says the CBDC ban is a political facade

Mark Gould, the Federal Reserve’s chief payments executive, said a digital dollar is not currently within the Fed’s remit. Gould acknowledged it would be the central bank’s responsibility if one were ever introduced.

Massad pointed to Project Agora as evidence of continued US engagement. The BIS initiative involves the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and six other central banks, testing tokenized deposits alongside wholesale central bank money on a programmable platform.

House Republicans pushed on May 19 to make the CBDC ban permanent inside a major housing bill. Trump originally signed an executive order in early 2025 prohibiting federal agencies from developing a CBDC.

What the US risks by staying out

Massad argued that global tokenization activity is forcing the US to build equivalent digital settlement infrastructure. His concern is that stepping back from international experiments could cost the US influence over global digital payment standards.

His position aligns with analysis crypto.news has tracked questioning whether private stablecoins can preserve dollar dominance. Massad served as CFTC chair from 2014 to 2017 and has long pushed for faster US action on digital currency infrastructure.