Investors are scared by bearish data, which has led traders to favor puts.

Takeaways from the conference:

• ETH Futures Liquidations Reached $224 Million after a 9% Price Drop, While the Network’s Onchain Activity Fell to a 12 Month Low.

• Ether’s price is at risk of further decline due to its high correlation with Bitcoin, and the massive withdrawals from ETFs.

EtherETHThe price of, which had been rising steadily for the past 48 hours, plummeted on Tuesday to just $1,800. This resulted in $224,000,000 worth of bullish leveraged positions being wiped out. Top traders are on the defensive after this 14% drop in price over the past 10 days. Data from options and futures, slow onchain activity and steady withdrawals from Ether exchange-traded fund (ETF) spot funds all suggest that the $1,800 floor is a weak one.

The demand for call and put options was fairly equal from Monday to Saturday. However, on Tuesday things changed quickly. The ETH volume premium jumped from 1.2x to 2.2x. This shows a scramble on the downside. Although some may have sold put options to bet against a bounce in price, it seems that the wider market is bracing itself for greater volatility.

On Tuesday, the options delta skew was 18% (put-call), meaning that puts traded at a premium. The lopsided nature of the demand indicates that hedges are currently at the top of everyone’s list. Even though ETH is 63% lower than its previous high, there’s a lack of confidence. Many of these frustrations are due to some very weak onchain figures.

TVL (total value locked) for Ethereum is now at $51 billion. It’s the lowest since May 20,25. Due to fewer deposits being made into decentralized applications, network fees for the past 30 days have dropped by $13.7million. The average amount of money spent on network fees in the last 30 days was $13.7 million, a huge drop from $33 millions. Traders fear that ETH will not be used for data processing anytime soon.

Although it was anticipated, recent ETH sales of $7 million were still a surprise linked to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin The mood hasn’t improved. Ethereum’s co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg, donated ETH 16.384 in his January personal holdings for privacy-focused technology, open source hardware, and verified, secure software. The optics added a new layer of pressure for the bears to a week that was already unstable.

Outflows from Ether ETFs The sentiment of investors has only worsened. Typically, institutional investors lose interest when they see this type of movement.

Related: Longest Ether dip since 2022 ignored by whales–What’s next for ETH?

Ether-listed ETFs in the US saw net outflows totaling $405 million since February 11. This has brought down assets under management to $12.4 billion. The shift occurred as the gold price climbed over $5,150. The gold ETFs raked in 822 million dollars in the last week of February, according to gold.org. 

Ether’s poor onchain and derivatives isn’t a death sentence. The fact that market makers and whales seem to expect more declines fuels the mood of the bears. Ether’s price has also been stuck at Bitcoin.BTCThe assets’ 20 day correlation is above 95% and has remained that way for three consecutive weeks.

The ETH decline to $1,800 is creating a small loop in which traders continue to guess what the real reason for this bear crypto market. This uncertainty forces traders to make losses and may continue until professional traders show fear. These derivatives metrics will not stabilize until they do. odds of ETH sliding further There is no change in the status quo.