Are ETH whales holding back the bulls? This latest data suggests that…

• ETH whales are on the sidelines despite the king of altcoins moving at a discounted price.
• ETH experienced slow demand in the derivatives market.

Quite a substantial number of ETH holders have given up their coins in the last four weeks after the altcon failed to stay above the $2,000 price level. Fast forward to the present and that sell pressure has subsided near the $1,800 price range.

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A sharp rally ensued the last time that ETH ran out of sell pressure after experiencing some downside. This time the price was less enthusiastic after finding support at the $1,790 price level.

Recent data suggested that whales might be holding back ETH bulls. Addresses holding over 1,000 ETH have reportedly been disinterested in re-accumulating ETH at its current level.

📉 #Ethereum $ETH Number of Addresses Holding 1k+ Coins just reached a 6-month low of 6,435

Previous 6-month low of 6,446 was observed on 15 May 2023

View metric:https://t.co/iDNXAbbLRt pic.twitter.com/V5fxUR6bAz

— glassnode alerts (@glassnodealerts) May 16, 2023

ETH’s supply distribution metric confirmed that most of the whale categories holding at least 1,000 ETH have been contributing to sell pressure. Despite this observation, addresses holding over 10 million coins have been accumulating during the last four weeks. This category of addresses controlled 17.75% of all ETH in circulation at press time.

Source: Santiment

These addresses holding over 10 million ETH have not influenced the market because the number of addresses might be very few. Alternatively, it is possible that those addresses belong to exchanges.

Ethereum exchange reserves have been experiencing outflows. The next logical explanation was that they were likely staking addresses. The number of ETH 2.0 deposits has been on the rise in the last four weeks as denoted below in red.

Source: CryptoQuant

Assessing the state of ETH demand in the derivatives market

ETH demand pulled back significantly in the last 10 days indicating a lack of excitement. The level of leverage saw a bit of an uptick in the second week of May just as ETH’s price adopted more downside.

This was likely due to short selling. However, it has conveniently pulled back in the last five days which was around the same time that the bears ran out of momentum. This indicated that short sellers were pulling back.

Source: CryptoQuant

How many are 1,10,100 ETHs worth today

ETH’s price action reflected the current stalemate in the market. It traded at 1,825 at press time and has been trading in a sideways pattern for the last five days. Low demand despite the recent discount that ETH has received in the last four weeks explains why ETH bulls are currently struggling to regain their strength. This lack of confidence was also evident in many of the top cryptocurrencies.