Ethereum is trading around $1,750, down -1.2% in 24 hours but up +12% over the past seven days, according to CoinGecko, and the timing is no accident. On Saturday, co-founder Vitalik Buterin described a multi-year protocol overhaul that touches almost every layer of how Ethereum actually works.
What he’s calling “Lean Ethereum” isn’t a single upgrade. It’s closer to a controlled demolition and rebuild, and the market is starting to price in what that means. In an X post following a researchers’ meeting in Berlin, Buterin said Lean Ethereum represents “the third major iteration” of the network, on par with the Merge, and that “almost every major piece of the protocol will be replaced” across three to four years.
Two weeks ago, Ethereum researchers met in Berlin to continue charting the protocol's long-term trajectory, following along discussions with client teams in Svalbard in April.
The updated strawmap is at https://t.co/HZEerH1xxI, and I attached a picture of it to this post.
My… pic.twitter.com/KPGayHSySf
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) July 4, 2026
The revised plan maps to seven network upgrades through 2029, published at strawmap.org. Buterin flagged the storage architecture as “probably the single most disruptive part,” describing a possible 2030 state in which a new, cheaper data tier holds 50 times as much data as the existing format.
He also noted that Hegota, Ethereum’s second scheduled upgrade of 2026, will likely be the last “pre-Lean” fork — meaning nearly everything after it is part of the rebuild.
Can Ethereum Price Break $1,800 and Hold This Week?
$ETH Still battling to reclaim $1,800 after tagging it a few times now.
Holding above $1,750 support for the time being, which is good to note given how choppy this has been.
If bulls can get a daily close over $1,800, that'd be the first sign of strength for me on this… pic.twitter.com/4Ast0OIs8G
— Daan Crypto Trades (@DaanCrypto) July 6, 2026
ETH is consolidating in a tight band, trading at around $1,750. The mid-$1,700s, roughly the $1,740–$1,755 zone, has emerged as near-term support, with the low-$1,800s acting as initial resistance. That resistance band is the line traders are watching.
Bull case: ETH holds the mid-$1,700s support on any near-term dip, absorbs sell pressure near $1,800, and the Lean Ethereum narrative drives sustained inflow from institutional desks rotating back into smart-contract platforms. A clean close above $1,800 opens a path toward the $1,900–$1,950 range.
Base case: Consolidation continues for several sessions, with ETH coiling between $1,750 and $1,810 while the market digests both the roadmap news and broader macro signals.
Bear case/invalidation: A failure to hold $1,750 on volume puts prior range lows back in focus, and the narrative benefit of the roadmap announcement fades quickly if macro conditions deteriorate. Three or four years is a long roadmap; sentiment can flip on shorter timeframes.
The 7-day momentum is real. Whether it compounds or reverts depends almost entirely on whether ETH can convert the $1,800 level from ceiling to floor. Analysts tracking ETH’s recent recovery point to that level as the critical near-term inflection.
LiquidChain Targets Early-Mover Upside as ETH USD Tests Key Levels
ETH at $1,750 is compelling. But a double-digit weekly gain at a $200Bn-plus market cap means the easy money on this particular move is largely behind early buyers.
That’s where the math on early-stage infrastructure starts to look different, particularly for projects building atop the multi-chain reality as Ethereum’s rebuild accelerates.
The irony: Ethereum’s own roadmap, by making L2s and data layers central, is doing more to validate cross-chain infrastructure than any single competitor could.)
LiquidChain ($LIQUID) is a Layer 3 (L3) infrastructure project, a protocol that sits atop existing blockchains to enable cross-chain execution, built around a single proposition: fusing the liquidity of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana into a single execution environment.
Its architecture centers on a Unified Liquidity Layer, Single-Step Execution, and a Deploy-Once model that lets developers write once and access all three ecosystems.
The presale is live at $0.01477 per $LIQUID, with $888,050.66 raised to date. The multi-chain thesis underpinning LiquidChain is worth understanding in the context of what Buterin just outlined.
EXPLORE: Best Crypto Presales With Asymmetric Upside in the Current Market
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