Ether prices have surged to their highest levels for almost four years, tapping $4,625 during Asian trading early on Wednesday morning.

The asset has continued to build momentum and is now up a whopping 54% over the past month and 27% over the past week. Meanwhile, the latest move has taken it to within 5.3% of its 2021 all-time high of $4,878, according to CoinGecko.

Ethereum’s market capitalization is now $552 billion, which ranks it 18th in terms of corporations and around $100 billion below credit giant Visa.

BitMine Plans $20B Raise

Crypto analysts are predicting a parabolic move for Ether, which could push prices into five figures this market cycle.

Chart patterns mirror the 2016/2017 market cycle when “pure retail mania” was driving gains, observed analyst “Merlijn The Trader,” who added, this time it is retail plus Wall Street plus “unstoppable global adoption.”

Ethereum is running the 2016–2017 playbook.

Last time: pure retail mania.

This time: retail + Wall Street + unstoppable global adoption.

When $ETH breaks, it won’t wait.

Be in… or be exit liquidity. pic.twitter.com/UX89fcZiA0

Momentum is being driven by Ethereum treasury companies, and the world’s largest one, BitMine Immersion Technologies, has just filed a prospectus with the SEC to raise an additional $20 billion through sales of common stock.

Prior to this update, Tom Lee’s firm reported that it had already completed sales under the program totaling roughly $4.5 billion.

BitMine, which already holds almost 1.2 million ETH worth around $5.3 billion, is expected to channel the proceeds into more ETH accumulation.

$20 billion would equate to more than 4 million ETH at current market prices. Analysts have already started to say that $15,000 per ETH is “already programmed.”

Ether ETFs On Fire

This immense buying pressure has only been matched by spot Ether ETFs, as retail has been largely absent from this rally.

ETH ETFs have seen another massive inflow day following their record $1 billion inflow on Monday, driven by BlackRock’s record $640 million inflow.

Tuesday saw another $523 million inflow and the fifth-best day since the products launched. Around $2.3 billion has entered the products over the past five trading days.

“Since the beginning of July, spot ETH ETFs have taken in nearly $1.5 billion more than spot BTC ETFs,” observed industry expert Nate Geraci, who added that this was a “notable shift.”

Another half bil into spot eth ETFs…

5th best day since launch.

Now $2.3bil over past 5 trading days.

Since beginning of July, spot eth ETFs have taken in nearly $1.5bil more than spot btc ETFs.

Notable shift.