Why is Ethereum up today?

Ether's 1.1% gain to $2,443 is essentially a market-wide move: Bitcoin is up 0.9% at $82,386, and both are stabilizing after a week in which US wholesale inflation came in hot and pushed BTC briefly below $80,000. ETH remains down 1.4% over seven days, and $18.78B in 24-hour volume reflects a market steadying rather than rallying.

The main ETH-specific support is distribution. Charles Schwab completed its retail rollout of direct bitcoin and ether trading, opening access across a brokerage overseeing $13.33 trillion, with CEO Rick Wurster describing crypto as a transaction-revenue engine and Solana, Avalanche and Chainlink planned by year-end. Bitcoin and ether ETFs also began trading in Thailand.

Working the other way: US spot bitcoin and ether ETFs shed a combined $390.97 million on Wednesday, erasing Tuesday's rebound. Fundamentally, Ethereum and its layer-2s settled 77% of stablecoin volume, or $16.75 trillion in transfers — a usage backdrop that hasn't translated into price strength this week.