Ether’s (ETH) price has retraced by over 5.6% to $2,275 after being rejected by resistance at $2,400. Now, multiple data points suggest ETH/USD may drop below $2,000.
Key takeaways:
- Low network activity signals declining usage and reduced onchain demand for ETH.
- Coinbase Premium remains negative as spot Ethereum ETF outflows returned, reflecting strong US-driven sell pressure.
- Ether’s falling wedge pattern targets $1,830.
Ether’s total value locked hits 12-month lows
Ethereum’s network fundamentals are weakening, with weekly average transactions dropping by 10% to 4.79 million, per data from Nansen. Active addresses dropped by 8% to 2.5 million over the same period.
Related: Three reasons why Ether price rallies fizzle near $2.4K
Network fees also dropped by approximately 27%, leading to a 47% reduction in onchain revenue over the last seven days.
Blockchain comparison: Daily transactions, active addresses and network fees. Source: Nansen
Additional data from DefiLlama shows that the weekly DEX volumes dropped to $1.64 billion on May 8, a 46% drop over the last three weeks.
Low transaction count, a drop in active addresses and declining DEX volumes reflect reduced ecosystem usage. As a result, the total value locked (TVL) in Ethereum’s DeFi protocols has dropped to $124.7 billion, levels last seen in May 2025.
Total value locked on Ethereum. Source: DefiLlama
This subdued network activity signals weak user conviction, affecting Ether’s ability to sustain upside price momentum.
Ether’s exit queue jumps 72,000%
Ethereum’s unstaking queue jumped by approximately 72,000% within two weeks to 530,985 ETH on May 2.
As of Friday, over 202,000 ETH were queued for redemption, with a wait time of around three days.
Number of Ether queued for exit. Source: Validator Queue
The surge comes after a series of significant DeFi hacks, reflecting investor caution. April 2026 saw DeFi platforms suffer a record $625 million in monthly losses following 30 separate attacks, including a $292 million loss from the KelpDAO bridge hack, leading to over $15 billion in deposits withdrawn from the Aave platform.
These incidents have prompted investors to unstake ETH to regain liquidity, signaling flight from perceived risk.
“The exit queue went from ~700 ETH to ~500K ETH in 2 weeks,” analyst Pete said in a recent post on X, adding:
Despite the sharp surge in outflow pressure, 3.6 million ETH remains queued for staking entry (7x exit volume), pushing total staked ETH to 38.6 million (31.72% of supply) despite 45-day wait times.
Ether’s Coinbase Premium remains negative
The Ethereum Coinbase Premium Index, which tracks the price difference between ETH on Coinbase and Binance, has stayed negative since April 27.
A negative premium confirms that the selling pressure is originating heavily from US entities. As long as US investors are selling at a discount compared to the global market, downside momentum will likely accelerate.
Ethereum Coinbase Premium Index. Source: CryptoQuant
Additionally, US-based spot Ethereum ETFs snapped a four-day inflow streak with $103 million in net outflows on Thursday, the largest withdrawal since mid-March.
Spot Ethereum ETFs flows chart. Source: SoSoValue
Coupled with more than $81.6 million in outflows from global Ethereum investment products last week, this points to institutional selling, adding to Ether’s headwinds.
Meanwhile, ETH taker buy volume dropped to as low as -$25 million on Binance in recent days, indicating a “sharp increase in aggressive market sell orders,” CryptoQuant analyst BorisD said in a Quicktake note on Friday, adding:
ETH taker buy volume on Binance. Source: CryptoQuant
Ether’s rising wedge breakdown is underway
The daily chart shows the ETH/USD pair validating a rising wedge pattern after the price lost support at the pattern’s lower trend line at $2,300.
Bulls are now fighting to keep the price above $2,150-$2,200, where the 100-day and 50-week simple moving averages (SMAs) are, respectively.
Another key line of defense is the $2,000 psychological level, which, if breached, would clear the path for Ether’s drop toward the measured target of the wedge at $1,830, about 20% below the current price.
ETH/USD daily price chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
As Cointelegraph reported, the ETH price may descend to $1,750-$1,850 if support at $2,300 is not reclaimed in the short term.
Source: https://cointelegraph.com/markets/four-signs-show-ethereum-eth-price-rally-exhausted-2-4k?utm_source=rss_feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss_partner_inbound
