Ethereum Price Today Holds Above $3,000 After Black Friday Bell as $1.7B in Options Expire

Ethereum price today, 28 November 2025, is holding just above $3,000 after the Black Friday stock-market close, with a massive options expiry and the upcoming Fusaka upgrade in focus.

Ethereum price today, 28 November 2025 (after the Black Friday bell)

As the shortened U.S. Black Friday session winds down, Ethereum (ETH) is trading slightly higher on the day and comfortably above the key $3,000 level.

Spot price: Around $3,030–$3,050 in late Friday trading, with Binance data putting ETH near $3,035.79, up about 0.68% on the day and in a $2,994–$3,099 intraday range. ^[1]
Daily reference level: YCharts’ end-of-day indicator shows $3,015.61 for 28 November, roughly 0.4% below Thursday’s reading and about 17.8% lower than a year ago. ^[2]
Overnight and weekly move: A morning update from RTTNews had Ethereum trading near $3,043.69, up 0.6%over 24 hours and 13.6% over the past week. ^[3]

In other words, ETH is consolidating just above $3,000, logging a solid double‑digit gain over the week but still lagging its highs:

Roughly 39% below its all‑time high,
Sitting on year‑to‑date losses of about 8.6%,
Holding a crypto market share of ~11.8% in a total market cap around $3.11 trillion. ^[4]

Sentiment has improved from outright panic but remains cautious: CoinMarketCap’s Fear and Greed Index has climbed out of “extreme fear” and now sits at 20 (“fear”), up from 11 a week ago. ^[5]

Macro backdrop: Black Friday risk sentiment and Fed rate‑cut bets

Today’s Ethereum price action is occurring against a backdrop of quietly positive risk sentiment:

U.S. stocks were modestly higher in the shortened Black Friday session, with Intel leading the S&P 500 higher and Coinbase shares up nearly 4% as Bitcoin traded around $92,000. ^[6]
A live crypto wrap notes that Ethereum is holding above $3,000 while traders increasingly price in a December Fed rate cut with odds around 87%, easing some of the macro pressure that dominated October and early November. ^[7]
RTTNews reports that crypto markets are digesting a CME Group outage affecting derivatives, a security incident at Korean exchange Upbit, and a rating downgrade of stablecoin issuer Tether, even as expectations for another Fed cut keep sentiment from sliding back into panic. ^[8]

Despite the headline noise, spot prices across the crypto complex are fairly steady:

Bitcoin is hovering in the low‑$90,000s with a weekly gain of more than 10%. ^[9]
Ethereum is up 13–14% on the week, but still underperforming some peers on a year‑to‑date basis. ^[10]

This mix of slightly risk‑on equities, cautious but improving crypto sentiment, and dovish‑leaning Fed expectationshelps explain why ETH is holding the $3,000 line—but not (yet) breaking out.

Derivatives spotlight: $1.73B in Ethereum options expire today

One of the biggest structural stories behind today’s trading is the monthly options expiry.

CoinCentral estimates that:

More than $15 billion in Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP options expire today,
Including about $1.73 billion in Ethereum contracts representing over 574,000 ETH. ^[11]

For ETH specifically:

The put‑call ratio sits at 0.48, meaning more call options than puts outstanding into expiry—a sign of structurally bullish positioning. ^[12]
The “max pain” price for Ethereum options is around $3,400, notably above today’s spot price near $3,000–$3,050. That’s the level where the greatest number of options would expire worthless. ^[13]
Over the last 24 hours, though, put volume has outpaced calls with a ratio near 1.78, suggesting short‑term hedging and tactical caution even as open interest remains call‑heavy. ^[14]

Deribit, the leading crypto options exchange, characterizes Ethereum as a “battlefield” between bulls and bears as this expiry hits. ^[15]

That dynamic helps explain the range‑bound price action around $3,000:

Bulls have structural exposure that benefits from higher prices into December,
But short‑term hedging and risk reduction around expiry keeps ETH from running too far, too fast, on Black Friday itself.

Institutional demand: BitMine gobbles ETH while tokenization headlines build

Under the surface, large institutional players continue to accumulate Ethereum, even though the spot price is only edging higher.

BitMine’s 3% slice of the Ethereum supply

A new report from CoinCentral details a major treasury move by BitMine Immersion Technologies:

On 28 November, BitMine bought 14,618 ETH from a BitGo wallet, worth about $44.34 million at the time of purchase.
The company now holds 3.63 million ETH, or roughly 3% of Ethereum’s total supply, and aims to reach 5% (~6 million ETH) over time. ^[16]
BitMine’s stock (BMNR) jumped nearly 9.8% on the news to around $31.74, while ETH itself stayed flat near $3,000, underscoring that treasury accumulation alone hasn’t yet sparked a breakout. ^[17]

BitMine’s aggressive strategy echoes the “Bitcoin‑as‑treasury‑reserve” playbook—only this time with Ethereum as the core asset.

ETF flows and real‑world tokenization

On the broader institutional front:

An AInvest roundup notes that U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs saw roughly $55.7 million in net inflows over the past week, easing fears of sustained redemptions and helping to stabilize price action around key support levels. ^[18]
Europe’s largest asset manager, Amundi, has launched a tokenized money‑market fund on Ethereum, working with CACEIS and a blockchain‑native transfer agent and order platform—another clear sign that Ethereum remains the preferred settlement layer for institutional tokenization experiments. ^[19]

Taken together, these developments suggest that long‑horizon capital is quietly adding ETH exposure, even as spot prices remain range‑bound around $3,000.

On‑chain fundamentals: gas limit doubled and record throughput ahead of Fusaka

Beyond price and flows, Ethereum’s core infrastructure is having a busy week.

Gas limit raised to 60 million

On 27 November, Ethereum validators approved a configuration change that:

Raised the block gas limit from 45 million to 60 million, effectively doubling capacity versus where it stood a year ago (30M → 60M). ^[20]
Enabled the network to process around 31,000 transactions per second at peak, with one rollup, Lighter, handling roughly 5,455 TPS during the surge. ^[21]

This wasn’t a hard fork, but a validator‑driven parameter change, and it gives developers more room for larger smart contracts, batched transactions and high‑throughput rollup activity—a positive backdrop for DeFi and tokenization.

Countdown to the Fusaka upgrade on 3 December

All of this is happening just days before Ethereum’s next major hard fork:

The Fusaka upgrade (sometimes stylized “Fusaka/Fusako”) is scheduled for 3 December 2025 at 21:49:11 UTCon mainnet. ^[22]
Core features include PeerDAS (sampled blob verification) and a Blob Parameter Optimization (BPO) fork, designed to cut Layer‑2 data fees by an estimated 40–60% and boost rollup throughput. ^[23]

Educational resources from the Ethereum community and infrastructure providers emphasize that Fusaka is about scalability and efficiency rather than flashy front‑end changes:

Higher effective data capacity,
More flexible blob economics,
Enhanced DoS protection and smoother UX for developers. ^[24]

Markets are already trading this narrative: several research notes argue that Fusaka, combined with the recent gas‑limit hike and record TPS, lays the groundwork for a potential medium‑term breakout if macro conditions cooperate. ^[25]

Technical view: $3,000 as the battlefield, $2,870–2,900 as key support

Chart analysts are almost universally focused on the $3,000 region as the current “line in the sand.”

CryptoPotato’s weekly analysis highlights a bounce from around $2,870, with ETH closing the week up about 10%and eyeing the $3,100–$3,300 zone if momentum continues. ^[26]
A Seeking Alpha technical note sees ETH holding above a long‑term ascending trendline around $3,045, with spot outflows easing to about $11.56 million after weeks of heavy selling. It flags resistance near $3,450, with a potential path toward $3,800 if that level breaks. ^[27]
FX‑focused commentary and intraday analysis from MEXC frame $3,000 as the pivot, suggesting that defending it could open the way toward $3,100–$3,230, while a break below $2,990 risks a slide back to the $2,900–$2,850area. ^[28]

Taken together, the short‑term technical picture looks like this:

Immediate support: $2,900–$2,950, with deeper structural support near ~$2,850. ^[29]
Immediate resistance: $3,100–$3,230, then $3,450; above that, analysts start talking about $3,800 and beyond. ^[30]

With options max pain around $3,400 and the Fusaka upgrade just days away, there’s a clear tug‑of‑war between traders who want to keep ETH pinned near $3,000 and those positioning for a December breakout.

Black Friday flavor: Crypto deals and shifting investor attitudes

It wouldn’t be Black Friday without some marketing noise—crypto included.

CoinCentral’s coverage of “Crypto Black Friday 2025” points to IPO Genie’s 30% bonus on $IPO tokens as one of the more prominent deals, arguing that this cycle’s investors are more focused on utility, transparent tokenomics and real economics than on gimmicky APYs. ^[31]

Alongside this retail‑facing noise, today’s newsfeed is packed with institutional‑scale Ethereum stories:

BitMine’s treasury buy and 3% supply stake,
Tokenized Amundi money‑market shares on Ethereum,
ETF flows returning to modest positive territory,
Massive ETH options open interest rolling off into month‑end. ^[32]

The contrast is clear: speculative promos grab headlines, but structural flows and protocol upgrades are doing most of the real work behind ETH’s $3,000 defense.

What to watch for Ethereum after Black Friday

Looking beyond today’s close, a few catalysts are likely to drive Ethereum’s next big move:

Fusaka mainnet launch – 3 December 2025
- Any technical hiccups could knock confidence and price, while a smooth upgrade that delivers lower L2 fees and higher throughput would strengthen the long‑term bull case. ^[33]
Post‑expiry positioning after the $1.73B ETH options roll‑off
- With max pain near $3,400 and spot still around $3,000, markets will watch to see whether dealers and funds re‑establish bullish call structures into December—or keep hedging aggressively. ^[34]
Fed meeting and inflation data in December
- Crypto traders are fixated on whether the Fed follows through on the widely priced‑in December rate cutand how updated PCE inflation figures land. Deviations from expectations could quickly spill over into ETH’s price. ^[35]
ETF flows and treasury accumulation
- Continued spot ETF inflows and more corporate treasury news in the mold of BitMine would reinforce the narrative that Ethereum is becoming a core institutional asset, not just a speculative playground. ^[36]

Bottom line: Ethereum steady above $3,000, but pressure is building

As of after the bell on Black Friday, 28 November 2025, Ethereum is quietly strong rather than euphoric:

Price is holding above $3,000 with modest daily gains and a strong weekly recovery,
Derivatives markets are signaling both structural optimism (call‑heavy open interest, $3,400 max pain) and short‑term caution (rising put volumes),
Institutional players are still building exposure through ETFs, treasuries and tokenization,
And the network itself is ramping up capacity ahead of a landmark Fusaka upgrade in just a few days.

For now, $3,000 remains the pivot: defend it, and the narrative into December is one of gradual healing and potential breakout; lose it, and the focus quickly shifts back to the $2,850–$2,900 support zone.

Either way, with major protocol changes, a huge options expiry and a key Fed decision all clustered within weeks, Ethereum’s current calm above $3,000 may not last long.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment or trading advice. Always do your own research and consider your risk tolerance before buying or selling any cryptocurrency.

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