Ethereum has 29 days to do what it has not done since 2015

Polymarket's Ethereum August price market gives an 81% chance that Ethereum falls to $1,800 this month and a 48% chance it falls to $1,700. At the same time, $2,300 is at 8%. Here's why betting against that at 93 cents is a solid way to earn 11.1% when the market closes on September 1.

Ethereum trades at $1,858. Touching $2,300 at any moment in the next 29 days means a climb of 23.8%.

It has managed that in August three times, in 2017, 2020 and 2021, and in each of those years Ethereum was in a bull market year. It is now 62.5% below the $4,953 it reached last August.

• Ethereum has fallen in seven of its 11 Augusts, and the median August is a 1.87% loss
• Every August it began with more than half its record gone, it lost money: 34.8% in 2018, 20.9% in 2019, 7.5% in 2022 and 11.3% in 2023
• Ethereum's drawdown is 62.5% against Bitcoin's 50%, the widest that gap has been in years
• It lost 17.52% in January and 19.81% in February, and the ETH to BTC ratio hit a multi-year low in May

July was Ethereum's best month of the year, up 19.6%, almost three times Bitcoin's. Even if July's price behavior repeats in August, max one could see is $2,222, still $78 short.

The central argument is that the 4-year cycle will continue to behave as it has in the past, as we discussed in our Bitcoin analysis yesterday.

There's no catalyst either. For example, the Securities and Exchange Commission again delayed its decisions on letting Ethereum funds stake the coins they hold, which is the one approval that would change what an Ethereum fund is for.