Ethereum back to $3K in May? Latest rebound says ETH price ‘still has more gas’

Key points:
-
Ether price rose 3% to $2,550 on May 18, triggering $22 million in short ETH liquidations.
-
A bull flag on the chart suggests a $3,700 target, with analysts predicting Bitcoin’s price to go as high as $5,000 in May.
Ether’s (ETH) price was up on May 18, rising more than 2.5% over the last 24 hours to trade at $2,536. This recovery reinforces the optimism among traders that ETH price could hit $3,000 in May, citing strong technicals.
Ether wipes out $7.5 million shorts in an hour
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and Bitsamp shows that ETH rose by more than 4.5% to an intraday high of $2,551 on May 18 from a low of $2,440 the previous day.
Accompanying Ether’s losses today are significant liquidations across the crypto market. According to data from CoinGlass, more than $158 million leveraged crypto positions have been liquidated over the last 24 hours, with $95 million representing long liquidations.
Short Ether liquidations amounted to $22.25 million, with the $7.5 million being wiped out in the last hour alone.
This means that short traders were caught off guard by Ether’s return to $2,500.
Additional CoinGlass data showed several bands of seller interest above the spot price, with ask orders worth over $384 million building up all the way up to $3,000. This suggested that the ongoing recovery might be capped at this level.
Is Ether’s recovery back?
Market analysts believe Ether’s recent drop was a technical correction to retest key support levels before continuing its uptrend toward $3,000 and beyond.
Titan of Crypto said that the weekly Stochastic RSI’s value at 79 suggests that ETH “still has more gas in the tank” to move higher.
#Ethereum might still have more gas in the tank
The weekly Stochastic RSI suggests there’s still room before reaching extreme overbought territory, possibly a few more weeks to go. #ETH pic.twitter.com/atCm93napO
— Titan of Crypto (@Washigorira) May 17, 2025
Ether’s downside may be capped at $2,400, according to pseudonymous analyst Chimp of the North.
The analyst shared a chart suggesting that the altcoin could continue its retracement to retest $2,400 support before launching another rally toward the $3,000-$3,300 range.
Fellow analyst Crypto Patel projected a deeper retracement for Ether, saying that ETH price could potentially drop $1,800 before launching a move higher.
“This area is a high-probability zone for bullish re-entry if price shows support,” the analyst wrote as part of a May 17 post of X, adding:
“If demand holds here, the next leg up toward $4,000–$5,000 could follow.”
As Cointelegraph reported, ETH could hit new all-time highs around $5,000, fueled by AI adoption, spot ETF inflows, and the latest improvements through the Pectra upgrade.
Related: Price predictions 5/16: BTC, ETH, XRP, BNB, SOL, DOGE, ADA, SUI, LINK, AVAX
Ether price bull flag is still in play
From a technical perspective, ETH price is still trading above a bull flag pattern in the four-hour timeframe, a bullish setup that forms after the price consolidates inside a down-sloping range following a sharp price rise.
The bull flag was confirmed on May 13 when the price broke above the upper trendline at $2,550. Ether is now retesting the upper boundary of the flag, currently at $2,470, which is acting as immediate support.
A daily candlestick close above this level could see the asset resume its uptrend toward the technical target of the bull flag at $3,720, up 50% from the current price.
Conversely, the RSI has dropped from 60 to 42 over the last 24 hours, suggesting that the ongoing correction may continue if profit-taking intensifies.
A daily candlestick close below the support level at $2,470 will increase the chances of a price drop to $2,400 and then to the flag’s lower boundary at $2,300.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
Bitcoin (BTC) $ 105,749.00
Ethereum (ETH) $ 2,549.40
Tether (USDT) $ 1.00
XRP (XRP) $ 2.17
BNB (BNB) $ 648.65
Solana (SOL) $ 151.26
USDC (USDC) $ 0.999799
Dogecoin (DOGE) $ 0.177083
TRON (TRX) $ 0.272532
Lido Staked Ether (STETH) $ 2,550.36
Cardano (ADA) $ 0.634559
Hyperliquid (HYPE) $ 40.97
Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) $ 105,671.00
Wrapped stETH (WSTETH) $ 3,074.66
Sui (SUI) $ 3.01
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) $ 459.68
Chainlink (LINK) $ 13.28
LEO Token (LEO) $ 9.20
Stellar (XLM) $ 0.259536
Avalanche (AVAX) $ 19.18
Toncoin (TON) $ 2.97
Shiba Inu (SHIB) $ 0.000012
USDS (USDS) $ 0.999734
WETH (WETH) $ 2,550.07
Wrapped eETH (WEETH) $ 2,723.54
Litecoin (LTC) $ 86.47
Hedera (HBAR) $ 0.154950
Binance Bridged USDT (BNB Smart Chain) (BSC-USD) $ 0.999476
Ethena USDe (USDE) $ 1.00
Monero (XMR) $ 318.85
Polkadot (DOT) $ 3.83
WhiteBIT Coin (WBT) $ 39.64
Bitget Token (BGB) $ 4.52
Coinbase Wrapped BTC (CBBTC) $ 105,737.00
Pepe (PEPE) $ 0.000011
Pi Network (PI) $ 0.606550
Uniswap (UNI) $ 7.26
Aave (AAVE) $ 276.96
Dai (DAI) $ 0.999528
Ethena Staked USDe (SUSDE) $ 1.18
Bittensor (TAO) $ 370.57
OKB (OKB) $ 51.84
Aptos (APT) $ 4.54
Internet Computer (ICP) $ 5.42
BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) $ 1.00
Tokenize Xchange (TKX) $ 34.35
NEAR Protocol (NEAR) $ 2.24
Cronos (CRO) $ 0.091446
Jito Staked SOL (JITOSOL) $ 183.10
Ethereum Classic (ETC) $ 16.76
Ondo (ONDO) $ 0.792011
sUSDS (SUSDS) $ 1.06
USD1 (USD1) $ 1.00
Mantle (MNT) $ 0.628463
Gate (GT) $ 16.77
Official Trump (TRUMP) $ 10.08
Kaspa (KAS) $ 0.073760
VeChain (VET) $ 0.022438
Fasttoken (FTN) $ 4.44
Sky (SKY) $ 0.088521
Cosmos Hub (ATOM) $ 4.12
Ethena (ENA) $ 0.303260
Lombard Staked BTC (LBTC) $ 105,441.00
Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (FET) $ 0.695075
POL (ex-MATIC) (POL) $ 0.200372
Render (RENDER) $ 3.47
Filecoin (FIL) $ 2.43
Arbitrum (ARB) $ 0.331912
Worldcoin (WLD) $ 0.992418
USDT0 (USDT0) $ 0.999297
Binance-Peg WETH (WETH) $ 2,552.17
Quant (QNT) $ 105.97
Algorand (ALGO) $ 0.178884
Jupiter Perpetuals Liquidity Provider Token (JLP) $ 4.44
First Digital USD (FDUSD) $ 0.998207
USDtb (USDTB) $ 0.999810
KuCoin (KCS) $ 11.17
SPX6900 (SPX) $ 1.50
Binance Staked SOL (BNSOL) $ 159.19
Jupiter (JUP) $ 0.429773
Fartcoin (FARTCOIN) $ 1.25
Flare (FLR) $ 0.018262
Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL) $ 1.86
NEXO (NEXO) $ 1.21
Celestia (TIA) $ 1.80
Rocket Pool ETH (RETH) $ 2,899.11
Kelp DAO Restaked ETH (RSETH) $ 2,667.93
Bonk (BONK) $ 0.000015
Injective (INJ) $ 11.62
Sonic (S) $ 0.335444
Optimism (OP) $ 0.596531
Story (IP) $ 3.53
Polygon Bridged USDT (Polygon) (USDT) $ 1.00
Binance Bridged USDC (BNB Smart Chain) (USDC) $ 0.999767
Sei (SEI) $ 0.177888
PayPal USD (PYUSD) $ 0.999569
XDC Network (XDC) $ 0.059434
Stacks (STX) $ 0.632078
Mantle Staked Ether (METH) $ 2,728.31
StakeWise Staked ETH (OSETH) $ 2,672.23