Ethereum Closes Three Straight Losing Quarters for the First Time in Its History

Ethereum has closed three consecutive red quarters for the first time in its trading history, losing 28% in Q4 2025, 29% in Q1 2026, and 25% in Q2 2026, according to CoinGlass data cited in a report distributed via OpenPR.

The pullback has been broad-based rather than isolated to Ethereum. Bitcoin touched a 21-month low near $58,000 in late June, and spot Bitcoin ETFs posted their worst-ever monthly outflow the same month. Market sentiment gauges have reflected the stress: the Fear and Greed Index sat at 12, deep in "Extreme Fear" territory, per the same report.

Not every headline out of the Ethereum ecosystem was bearish. A new nonprofit, Ethereum Institutional, launched on July 1 with backing from Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin and relationships spanning Tier 1 banks and asset managers representing roughly $250 trillion in combined assets under management, according to reporting referencing CoinDesk. Ethereum also hosts a large share of the tokenized real-world-asset market, a segment institutions have continued to build on even as spot prices fell.

On the protocol side, Ethereum's next major upgrade, nicknamed Glamsterdam, is targeted for the second half of 2026 and would be the first hard fork focused on base-layer throughput since the Merge, according to Crypto.com. No mainnet date has been locked in, with developers describing Q3 as the realistic window.

Multi-quarter drawdowns like this one are exactly why nominal price charts can be misleading over long holding periods — a chart that only shows dollar price never shows what those dollars can still buy. See how a specific Ethereum purchase compares in real terms using The Crypto Reality Check, or read our explainer on how real returns differ from the profit calculators most sites use.