Ethereum Whales Retreat—But Traders, This Key Level Will Decide the Next Move

Big-money Ethereum holders are pulling back—yet the real action hinges on one critical price threshold. Fail here, and the bulls get slaughtered. Hold here, and shorts get squeezed into oblivion.

Market veterans know the drill: Whale exits often signal turbulence ahead. But retail traders? They’ll likely ignore the warning until their portfolios bleed out—classic ’buy high, panic low’ behavior.

Watch the charts. Play the levels. And maybe—just maybe—don’t be the last one holding the bag when the music stops.

Are whales abandoning Ethereum?

On-chain data from IntoTheBlock revealed that whale transactions between $1 million and $10 million have significantly dropped by 62.42% over the past week.

This massive decline indicates that major players or institutions are pulling back.

Source: IntoTheBlock

However, not only did transactions worth $1 million to $10 million drop, but transactions between $100,000 to $1 million and $10,000 to $100,000 also declined by 43.14% and 27.94%, respectively, over the past seven days.

Additionally, on-chain metrics further reveal that the number of large transactions has dropped by 51.68%, indicating lower interest from whales.

When combining these metrics with ETH’s price momentum, it indicates bearishness for the asset and may signal a potential price decline.

Traders bearish view

At press time, ETH’s Long/Short Ratio stood at 0.95. In fact, 51.17% of top ETH traders positioned themselves short, while 48.83% remained long, according to Coinglass.

Source: Coinglass

Looking at these metrics, it appears that, along with whales, traders have also begun shifting their sentiment toward the bearish side in anticipation of a price decline.

At press time, ETH traded NEAR $1,805, posting a 0.55% decline over the past 24 hours.

During the same period, its Trading Volume dropped by 40%, indicating lower participation from traders and investors compared to the previous day.

Ethereum’s price action and key levels 

According to AMBCrypto’s technical analysis, ETH appears to be in a make-or-break situation as its price moves into the narrow zone of an ascending triangle pattern on the four-hour time frame.

Source: TradingView

Historically, a breakdown from this pattern could lead to a sharp decline, with ETH potentially dropping over 7% to retest the horizontal support level near $1,690.

However, there is also a chance for an upside breakout. This would occur if ETH breaks above the neckline of the ascending triangle pattern and closes a four-hour candle above the $1,840 mark. Such a move could trigger a significant upward rally.

Despite current challenges, ETH remains above the 200 Exponential Moving Average (EMA) on the four-hour chart, signaling that the asset is still in an uptrend.