Ether stalls near $2,400 as DApp revenue, DEX volumes fall

Ether has stalled near $2,400 after failing to hold that level for three months. The token is down about 21% year-to-date in 2026, while the total cryptocurrency market capitalization is down about 11% YTD. On-chain measures show declines: decentralized exchange volumes fell 53% over six months and DApp revenue dropped 49% in the same period.

Decentralized exchange activity weakened as memecoin prices fell and fewer token launches took place, reducing speculative trading. Aggregate DEX activity declined about 47% over three months, according to on-chain analytics.

The sector recorded major security losses in April. Industry figures show roughly $630 million in hacks that month, with KelpDAO and Drift Protocol accounting for about 82% of the total. Security firm Hacken linked several attacks to actors associated with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Some DApp users and developers have shifted to alternative blockchains that emphasize base-layer scalability. Solana and Hyperliquid together account for about 42% of DApp revenue, while Ethereum’s total value locked remains roughly six times larger than those chains.

Ethereum’s planned glamstedam upgrade aims to increase base-layer capacity roughly threefold and allow clients to pre-fetch block data to enable parallel transaction execution. Uttam Singh, an engineer at Alchemy, wrote that parts of the market had misjudged the upgrade’s impact on rollups.

Institutional holdings show sizable unrealized losses. Bitmine (BMNR US), the largest publicly listed holder of Ether, spent about $12.2 billion acquiring ETH; the position is currently valued near $10.8 billion, an unrealized shortfall of about $1.4 billion. Tom Lee is the company’s chairman. Analysts noted such losses do not automatically trigger a sell-off but can affect institutional demand.

Market participants are monitoring on-chain metrics, upcoming protocol upgrades and institutional flows for signs of changing demand.