Ethereum’s $2.8K pullback – Here’s why you shouldn’t panic just yet

• During its recent rally, Ethereum did not see a flurry of activity from retail investors in the spot market.
• The consistent demand for ETH in May showed that the price dip might not last long.

Ethereum [ETH] saw its short-term bullish sentiment fade. An ETH whale wallet recently deposited 10,195 tokens worth $25.67 million to the centralized exchange Kraken. Such moves usually signal an intent to sell.

The recent correction from $2.8K was influenced by a rise in Taker Sell Volume. However, AMBCrypto’s analysis shows that buyers have remained dominant over longer periods.

Source: CryptoQuant

In a post on CryptoQuant Insights, CQ analyst Burrak Kesmeci noted that local tops have been accompanied by flurried trading activity. The most recent example was the high activity in March 2024.

In December, when ETH retested the $4k mark again, retail activity had not gone wild. Neither did the recent recovery to $2.8k. This implied that retail activity was missing, which in turn suggested Ethereum was still early in its bullish phase.

AMBCrypto found that some other metrics supported this idea.

The selling pressure behind Ethereum has been minor

Source: CryptoQuant

The spot volume bubble map marks heightened and decreased trading volume across all exchanges. Generally, rapidly increased trading volume and overheated signals in the market point toward a pullback.

This occurred in December 2024. A repeat of this was yet to occur.

The quick recovery of ETH from $1.7k to $2.8k since April was accompanied by reduced trading volume. Profit-taking activity has not rocketed higher, which was a positive development.

Source: CryptoQuant

Although trading volume was low, it did not rule out a potential price pullback.

For further insight, the spot taker CVD metric, which tracks the cumulative difference between market buy and sell volume over three months, provides key evidence.

In May, the metric remained green and rising, indicating that taker buy orders were dominant. This suggests that despite the cooling volume, buyers still controlled the market, making any Ethereum price retracement likely to be shallow rather than deep.