ETH fell to $1,880.60 even as two major Ethereum infrastructure updates landed.
Lido migrated over 8 million staked ETH, worth $16.5 billion, onto new validators.
Bitmine’s holdings reached 96% of its 5% ETH supply target this week.
Ether (ETH) traded at $1,880.60 as of Tuesday, down 0.53% on the session, after opening at $1,890.54 and swinging between a high of $1,892.48 and a low of $1,865.21, per TradingView data.
The slip below $1,900 landed on the same day two of Ethereum’s largest staking-adjacent entities delivered substantial, dated updates of their own.
Two large-scale updates land on the same day
Lido rolled out its largest core protocol upgrade since 2023 on Monday, migrating more than 8 million staked ETH, worth roughly $16.5 billion, onto Ethereum’s newer high-balance validator design.
Lido Core 2026 Upgrade
The biggest evolution of Lido Core brings improvements across the staking modules to keep the protocol aligned with Ethereum’s roadmap and ensure long-term protocol sustainability.
No action is required from stakers – the upgrade is protocol-level.
The shift, called Curated Module v2, cuts Ethereum’s total validator count from about 880,000 to about 628,000, close to a third, and trims attestation messages by an estimated 29% per epoch, easing load on the consensus layer.
The share of ETH secured by larger compounding validators, which can hold up to 2,048 ETH instead of the legacy 32 ETH cap, rises from 32% to 52%. For the first time, curated node operators must also post their own ETH as collateral against slashing or operational failures, with all 34 existing operators expected to complete the migration rather than exit over the new requirement.
The same week, Bitmine’s ETH holdings reached 5,787,414 tokens as of July 26, valued at $1,948 per ETH, putting total crypto, cash, and marketable securities at $11.8 billion. That is 4.8% of the 120.7 million ETH supply and 96% of the company’s stated goal of acquiring 5% of all ETH, reached in 13 months.
3/ “Bitmine repurchased 6.1 million shares of common stock in the past week, an increase from the 5.5 million purchased the week prior. We increased our equity buyback as we view the rising ETH/BTC ratio, despite the falling odds of passage of the Clarity Act in 2026, as a sign… pic.twitter.com/LVOB46sIgL
Staked holdings of 4,917,189 ETH, 85% of the total, are generating an annualized run rate of $254 million at a 2.65% seven-day yield, with the fully staked figure projected to reach $299 million once the remaining unstaked balance is deployed.
Bitmine also repurchased 6.1 million shares over the past week, up from 5.5 million the week before, and remains the largest Ether treasury and the second-largest crypto treasury globally behind Strategy, which holds roughly 843,775 BTC, worth about $59 billion.
Two structural updates of this scale landing in the same window without moving the price much are themselves worth noting. Neither is a demand shock in the way a large spot purchase or ETF flow print would be, but both change the shape of who holds and secures ETH going forward.
Technical levels to watch
Ether’s daily candle printed an open of $1,890.54, a high of $1,892.48, a low of $1,865.21, and a close of $1,880.60, per TradingView’s technicals panel.
The moving average (MA) stack is split by time frame.
The 10-day exponential moving average (EMA) at $1,886.96 and the 10-day simple moving average (SMA) at $1,896.98 both signal a downward bias, with price having slipped below its most recent short-term trend.
The 20-day EMA at $1,858.04, 20-day SMA at $1,862.34, 30-day EMA at $1,838.18, 30-day SMA at $1,812.08, 50-day EMA at $1,839.74, and 50-day SMA at $1,757.16 all read upward signals, meaning the broader month-long trend remains intact even as the most recent week has turned down.
The 100-day EMA at $1,931.35, 100-day SMA at $1,952.84, 200-day EMA at $2,176.87, and 200-day SMA at $2,127.99 all sit above the current price, serving as downward signals.
Oscillators lean mixed rather than confirm the pullback.
The relative strength index (RSI) reads 54.36, and the average directional index (ADX) reads 24.06, both neutral.
The moving average convergence/divergence (MACD) level reads 37.64, and momentum reads 19.23, both downward signals, the panel’s only two directional readings.
Stochastic %K, the commodity channel index, Stochastic RSI fast, Williams percent range, bull/bear power, and the ultimate oscillator all sit neutral.
Support sits at the 20-day EMA near $1,858, with the weekly low of $1,865.21 as the more immediate floor. Resistance sits at the 10-day EMA and the Hull moving average cluster near $1,887-$1,902; the zone needs to be reclaimed before testing the 100-day EMA near $1,931.
What comes next
Neither Lido’s validator consolidation nor Bitmine’s supply-target milestone functions as a near-term price catalyst on its own. Both are structural changes that play out over months, and the market’s muted reaction reflects that rather than indifference to the news itself.
What the two updates share is a common thread: Ethereum’s staking layer is consolidating and scaling at the same time the price sits in a holding pattern below its short-term averages, a split between infrastructure progress and price action that is worth tracking as its own signal.
The level worth tracking is not $1,900 itself but the 20-day EMA near $1,858. A close below that level would put the broader month-long uptrend on the defensive for the first time since it began, regardless of what either Lido or Bitmine does next. A reclaim of the $1,887-$1,902 cluster would instead put the short-term MAs back in line with the longer trend.
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Abhinav is a researcher and author specializing in cryptocurrency, blockchain, and Web3, translating complex protocols into actionable insight for institutions and builders. Drawing on experience across digital marketing, management, and research, he focuses on tokenization, stablecoins and payments, DeFi, and real‑world assets, with rigorous analysis of protocol economics, security, governance, and layer‑2 scalability.
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