Even though bears are still in charge, ether funds have turned negative.

Takeaways from the conference:

• Ethereum stake rewards were below stablecoin returns and the price of Ether was impacted by investors pulling $225 million out of ETFs.

• The recent Ethereum network upgrade and the plans to improve wallet security have been positives but are not enough to spark demand for Ether.

EtherETHThe price of ETH has failed repeatedly to maintain levels above $2100 in the last month, slowly eroding the confidence of traders. The ETH derivatives metrics show that despite a 7% gain between Monday and today, there is little interest in bullish leveraged positions. This could be a sign of the continued dominance of bears.

ETH futures dipped in the negative on Tuesday. This indicates a greater demand for bearish (short) positions. The metric, which is more important to note, has been below the neutral 6-12% range over the past month. Investors are disappointed in part because of a price drop of 54% over the past six months. However, cooling activity onchain has played an important role.

The Ethereum base layer fee has averaged $2.3m over the last month. This is down from $8m at the peak of early February. The 7-day transactions have stabilized at 14 million. However, the industry’s focus on layer-2 scalability and rollup has failed to create new demand for native Ether.

Tuesday, the ETH option risk gauge was in the neutral -6% – +6% range. This is contrary to the perpetual futures market. Call (buy) and put (sell), options were traded at an 7% premium, indicating that Ether bulls have slowly begun to regain confidence. Other than that, Ethereum has $56 Billion in Total Value Locked (TVL).

Between Thursday and Monday there was a $225 million net outflow from Ether Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), reversing $169 inflows on Wednesday. The metric is a proxy for institutional demand which has been held back due to the current 2.8% native rate. staking reward rate. Sky Lending’s stablecoins (formerly MakerDAO), on the other hand, had a higher yield of 3.75%.

Ethereum ETFs are in demand, but there is a weak spot and some concern about the roadmap.

It has taken a while for the excitement around the ETF’s staking approval to be translated into sustainable market demand. You could say that this was a bad outcome due to bad timing, since the launch occurred at the same time as a crypto-market downturn which started in early October.

Related: Was Ethereum ‘ultrasound money’ a mistake? ETH down 65% vs. BTC since pivot

ETH’s performance has lagged behind the broader market for cryptocurrencies since October 2025. There are currently no signs of a turnaround. A staggering 8% drop in the price of bitcoin has also impacted investor confidence. $735 million net loss Sharplink, the Ethereum Treasury firm (SBET US), in 2025. On Monday, the company headed by Ethereum cofounder Joseph Lubin released its financial results.

Ether may have suffered from a lack of native-chain scalability. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, for example, said Saturday that smart accounts will be deployed. “within a year,” After more than decade under development. The transactions will have the ability to refer back to each other, which allows for quantum resistant wallets.

One of the advantages to be gained from the upcoming Ethereum Hegota split is that gas payments can now be made in tokens other than ETH using decentralized exchanges. “general-purpose public mempool” And removing “public broadcasters” Railgun, Tornado Cash and other privacy-focused platforms. Buterin has also stated that he anticipates “progressive decreases” Slot time and Finality Time in the Long Term

Onchain and ETH derivatives indicate a low level of conviction for a bullish breakout over $2,200. However, at the same, there are no signs that conditions will worsen or bears will dominate.