Slowly, then all at once.

Ethereum, which has dragged during the latest crypto rally, is finally heating up as institutional investors take a second look at the number two cryptocurrency.

The reasons are myriad, but landmark stablecoin legislation is chief among the key engines powering the cryptocurrency’s recent price action, say analysts.

The second-biggest cryptocurrency surged 26% last week as US President Donald Trump signed the Genius Act, which legalises stablecoins in the US, into law.

With Ethereum making almost 50% of the $261 billion stablecoin market, analysts say the new law will kickstart a boom, with rising demand for Ethereum on Wall Street.

“Banks, payment players, and fintechs would continue buying operational [Ethereum] to pay transaction fees for deploying stablecoins and tokenised assets on the blockchain,” Bernstein analysts wrote in a Monday report.

But that’s just one piece of a much larger pie for Ethereum.

The cryptocurrency has also been enjoying a wave of accumulation by public companies that are adding Ethereum to their corporate reserves.

Firms like Sharplink Gaming and Bitmine are racing to become the biggest corporate Ethereum holders, in a move similar to Strategy’s policy of buying millions of dollars of Bitcoin for its balance sheet.

Institutional investors are also piling into Ethereum exchange-traded funds.

Though Ethereum ETFs have trailed their Bitcoin counterparts in terms of volume, they attracted higher daily investment than Bitcoin ETFs for the first time on July 17.

Analysts predict that more investment will flow into Ethereum ETFs once the Securities and Exchange Commission allows staked funds, which are yield-bearing ETFs that offer investors exposure to Ethereum’s staking market.

BlackRock, the $12 trillion asset manager, filed last week to add staking to its $8.9 billion iShares Ethereum Trust.

“A yield-bearing ETF of an appreciating asset might turn out to be the next big asset management success for the digital assets industry, attracting even more investment flows,” according to Bernstein analysts.

Analysts are now forecasting even more optimistic price targets for the number two cryptocurrency.

That leaves one question on traders’ minds: how high can Ethereum go?

Mateusz Kara, CEO of Ari, a crypto payment company, said Ethereum going to $7,000 “no longer seems unrealistic.”

Others even have higher price targets, as Theodorum noted that some analysts expect Ethereum’s price to reach as high as $15,000 this year.

“Ethereum is having its time in the sun,” Mena Theodorum, co-founder of Coinstash, a crypto exchange, shared with DL News.

Osato Avan-Nomayo is our Nigeria-based DeFi correspondent. He covers DeFi and tech. Got a tip? Please contact him at osato@dlnews.com.