Ethereum Price Rally: $2,875 Target After Vitalik Buterin Hits Back at Cardano Founder

• Vitalik Buterin countered Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson’s critique of Ethereum’s reliance on Layer 2 solutions by promoting zkVM innovation.
• Ethereum’s falling wedge pattern suggests a potential bullish breakout with targets as high as $2,875.

As the new week kicked in, the Ethereum (ETH) price failed to keep up the momentum with the broader crypto market. At press time, ETH price gained a mere 0.06%, trading at $1,810.95. Moreover, earlier in the day, it fell 2.9% to $1,783.53, according to CoinGecko data. On the other hand, Bitcoin gained 1% to reclaim $95,100; thus, the gap in performance between BTC and ETH widened.

For further context, ETH’s 24-hour trading range settled between $1,782.07 and $1,848.73, with price action tilting towards the lower band. This continued a correction phase initiated over the weekend. Despite the short-term weakness, Ethereum’s seven-day performance remains positive at +12.4%, outpacing Bitcoin’s +10.6%. However, when viewed over a 30-day period, Ethereum’s 6.0% gain lags BTC’s stronger double-digit advance, highlighting capital rotation trends amid a volatile macro backdrop.

Vitalik Buterin Fires Back At Cardano’s Charles Hoskinson

After Cardano’s founder, Charles Hoskinson, accused the Ethereum network of becoming too dependent on Layer 2 solutions, the sentiment towards the network became negative for investors. On April 17, Hoskinson told CNBC that Layer 2 projects such as Arbitrum and Optimism are taking value away from Ethereum, and it could collapse in 15 years without structural change.

On Sunday, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin posted an important update in an apparent countermove. Highlighting the work of LayerZero Labs and Succinct Labs, Buterin endorsed a Layer-Zero innovation involving a transition from the traditional Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to a zkVM system based on RISC-V architecture.

Research materials reposted by Buterin outlined major efficiency improvements: zkVM implementation could reduce computation cycles by up to 832× compared to current EVM performance. Additionally, the use of precompiled operations could slash proving cycles by 95.7%, while GPU acceleration is expected to deliver a 30× increase in throughput. Proof sizes could also shrink dramatically, from 346MB down to 1.5MB, thanks to recursion techniques.

Out of all Layer-Zero proposals presented, this one is about achieving Web2 levels of transaction speeds while maintaining Web3 decentralization axioms. If successful, it could reduce Ethereum’s reliance on external Layer 2 networks for scalability. This alleviates concerns of long-term fragmentation of the ecosystem.

Ethereum Price Technical Analysis

Ethereum is showing a falling wedge pattern, which on tech analysis is a classic bullish pattern, and it is targeting price targets as high as $2,875. There are supporting indicators behind the upward case: the Parabolic SAR, which has its blue dots now below the price candles, indicating that bullish control has returned after a long bear run, as highlighted in our previous story. 

Source: TradingView

Whilst the Fisher Transform indicator is still strongly reflecting strong bullish momentum at 2.22. Although overbought conditions suggest a risk of minor retracement, the overall trend remains tilted toward further gains. However, should ETH fail to defend support near $1,569, the bullish breakout could be invalidated, exposing the asset to deeper downside towards the $1,385 region.