# Ether Trading Volume Fell 23% During 71% Third-Quarter Rally By Enna Lee Canonical URL: https://www.tokenpost.com/news/investing/36794 Published: 2026-10-21T15:30:03.000Z Updated: 2026-10-21T15:30:03.000Z Section: Investing > Average daily ETH trading fell to $11.5 billion, while U.S. spot Ether funds shifted from third-quarter inflows to October withdrawals. Ether (ETH) advanced 71% in the third quarter while its average daily trading volume dropped 23.2%, leaving a thinner trading backdrop for a rally that has since partly reversed. Daily volume averaged $11.5 billion, down from $15.0 billion in the second quarter. ETH finished Sept. 30 at $2,684. The gain, its strongest since the first quarter of 2021, ended three consecutive losing quarters. The volume decline adds a measure of trading activity to the [earlier account of Ether’s rally](). ETH’s price rose sharply over the quarter even as the average dollar value traded each day fell from the preceding three months. At about 11:23 a.m. ET (15:23 UTC) on Oct. 21, ETH traded near $2,504. That was roughly 7% below its September close. The October reading captures a later point in time than the quarterly gain and does not change the third-quarter result. U.S. spot Ether exchange-traded funds brought in $3.1 billion during the third quarter. More recently, the funds posted a $26.1 million net withdrawal in the Oct. 20 trading session, extending a [five-session outflow streak]() to $388.9 million. Each session from Oct. 14 through Oct. 20 recorded net withdrawals. Those fund totals cover different periods: one spans the full third quarter, while the withdrawal streak falls in October. Fund flows also measure money entering or leaving the U.S. products, whereas the trading-volume figure measures activity across ETH markets during the quarter. The broader crypto market showed a similar split between value and trading. Total market capitalization climbed 39.6% to about $3 trillion in the third quarter, even as average daily market volume slid 8.6% to $73.3 billion. Ether’s volume decline was steeper than the marketwide drop. Ethereum held about $143.5 billion in stablecoins in an Oct. 21 snapshot, equal to 47.7% of the $301.1 billion tracked across networks. That balance describes stablecoins on the Ethereum network. It does not measure purchases of ETH or offset the decline in the asset’s trading volume. ## Links in this article - [earlier account of Ether’s rally](https://www.tokenpost.com/news/investing/29481) - [five-session outflow streak](https://www.tokenpost.com/news/investing/36735)