Ethereum’s rally accelerated on Sunday, with the token touching an intraday record of $4,957.67 on Binance before easing to about $4,937, up roughly 3% over the past 24 hours. The latest jump leaves the second-largest cryptocurrency within sight of the psychologically important $5,000 mark and comes only two days after it surpassed its previous peak of $4,878 set in November 2021. Derivatives markets are feeling the heat: data from Coinglass show about $57 million in positions were liquidated in the past hour alone, while market trackers estimate forced liquidations could swell to roughly $1.65 billion if the price decisively breaks $5,000. Multiple factors have fed the advance. Expectations of easier monetary policy, bolstered by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s recent hints that rate cuts are on the table, have pushed investors toward risk assets. Spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds listed in the United States attracted more than $1 billion in net inflows in a single day last week, outpacing comparable Bitcoin products. Corporate treasuries are also accumulating the token: BitMine Immersion now holds more than $7 billion worth of ETH and SharpLink Gaming about $3.6 billion. On the regulatory front, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s guidance allowing staking rewards without formal registration, along with the passage of the GENIUS Act setting a framework for U.S.-backed stablecoins, has further improved sentiment. While momentum traders eye the round-number milestone, analysts caution that the approach to $5,000 could bring heightened volatility given the scale of leverage in the market.