As of the evening period in the UTC+8 time zone, the price of ETH on major exchanges like OKX briefly fell below the $2900 mark, with a short-term pullback of about 0.6%, and a cumulative decline of approximately 2%–3% over the past 24 hours. This round of volatility coincides with weakened demand momentum for BTC, declining purchasing power in the U.S. market, and a cooling of market risk appetite, leading to increased discussions among on-chain and market data institutions regarding the "bear market theory." The current phase resembles a weak downward probe against the backdrop of regulatory expansion and liquidity structure shifts, rather than a simple characterization as the starting point of a unidirectional trend.
Core Events
Recently, ETH has experienced a continuous pullback on trading pairs like OKX-ETH/USDT, amplified from a 5-minute level to a daily level, with prices retreating from above $2960 to below $2900, resulting in a 24-hour decline of nearly 2.4%. According to publicly available data from OKX, the price of ETH was around $2967 the previous day, before briefly falling below the $2900 mark, with a 5-minute fluctuation range of about 0.3%–0.6%. This downward breach of the integer level is more reflective of a "technical breakdown" caused by a lack of buying support in a weak environment, rather than a sharp collapse accompanied by a single significant negative event.
Simultaneously, BTC has also shown weak signals. The OKX-BTC perpetual contract was quoted around $86800, while the platform indicated that "purchasing power in the U.S. market has weakened over the past 12 hours, and prices may decline," highlighting that mainstream assets are facing insufficient capital support within the same time window. As an asset highly correlated with BTC, ETH's ability to defend the integer level has clearly diminished in this environment, leading to a price decline.
From a market structure perspective, this pullback occurs against the backdrop of accelerated industry compliance and continuous upgrades in trading infrastructure throughout 2025: OKX's regulated trading volume has expanded approximately 53 times this year, while DEX trading volume has surged over 260%. However, short-term prices have chosen to test support downwards in the absence of marginal positive news. This divergence of "maturing fundamentals and short-term price pressure" is a significant characteristic of the current cycle.
Incentive Analysis: News, Capital, and Sentiment
From the news perspective, this round of ETH pullback does not have clear, direct negative events targeting ETH itself, but rather exists within the broader framework of rising macro uncertainty and cooling BTC narratives. Some market participants link the recent overall pressure on risk assets to macro variables such as high overseas interest rates and tightening global liquidity expectations, believing these factors coincide with ETH's downward movement, potentially amplifying risk-averse sentiment. In the absence of strong positive news for ETH itself, the bearish expectations from the macro and BTC sides have been amplified and transmitted to ETH prices.
As the main pricing anchor of the entire crypto market, changes in BTC's demand momentum significantly impact ETH. On-chain data analysis institutions like CryptoQuant have pointed out clear signs of cooling demand momentum for Bitcoin, leading them to believe the market may have entered a weak cycle; 10x Research also emphasized the poor performance of BTC mining companies and related crypto stocks, signaling a weakening correlation between "crypto stocks and spot currency prices." These views are not market consensus, but during cautious sentiment phases, they can easily be amplified as evidence for the "bear market theory," thereby suppressing risk appetite for major assets, including ETH.
On the capital side, OKX's indication of "weakened purchasing power in the U.S. market" provides a key observation angle. The weakening of marginal buying in the U.S. market over the past 12 hours means that capital from the dollar time zone, which is an important source of pricing power, has chosen to wait or reduce positions, directly weakening the upward momentum for assets like ETH. Meanwhile, the supply of native dollar assets on Aave has reached a historical high of about $350 million, indicating that some funds are allocating cash equivalents or low-volatility assets through lending protocols, reflecting an increase in "defensive positions" in trading behavior.
In terms of sentiment, discussions within the market community about "ETH will further probe downwards" have significantly increased. Community sentiment has shifted from cautious optimism to a focus on "defense" and "pullback expectations," with many short-term traders viewing the breach of the integer level as a signal of weakening trends. However, some participants see ETH's drop below $2900 as a window for medium to long-term discounted allocation, believing that in the context of compliance expansion on leading platforms like OKX, and relatively robust on-chain income and staking demand for Ethereum, the short-term price pullback has not altered the long-term narrative.
In the three lines of clues—news, capital, and sentiment—what emerges is a common direction: a bearish narrative from the macro and BTC sides, weakened capital support in the U.S. market, sentiment being more sensitive to negative signals, and a lack of independent positive support for ETH in the short term, leading to a limited but significant integer-level pullback.
Deep Logic: Regulatory Expansion and Liquidity Structure Misalignment
To understand ETH's drop below $2900, one must not only look at the minute-by-minute candlestick charts but also place it back into the structural changes of the entire year of 2025. According to publicly available data this year, after entering the U.S. and European markets, OKX's regulated trading volume has expanded approximately 53 times compared to earlier stages, and DEX trading volume has surged about 262% during the same period. This indicates that overall trading activity is expanding, but the structure of marginal liquidity and risk appetite is undergoing profound adjustments.
On one hand, second-layer solutions like X Layer have introduced features such as zero gas fee transfers (e.g., USDT/USDC), significantly reducing users' on-chain transaction costs and improving the participation efficiency of institutions and long-term funds; on the other hand, some ordinary users have reported that promotional rebate earnings have significantly decreased at higher points, with individual experiences dropping from "daily earnings of about hundreds" to "a few dollars." At a structural level, this can be understood as: trading volume and activity are still present, but high-frequency speculation and "yield farming" opportunities are being noticeably squeezed.
This change in funding duration and risk appetite will have a direct impact on the short-term price elasticity of mainstream assets like ETH. When more funds shift towards compliant channels, preferring long-term allocations and low-leverage strategies, prices lack the previous sources of rapid upward momentum from "high-leverage bulls + FOMO retail investors" when facing short-term shocks. Conversely, in an environment of weakened BTC momentum and declining purchasing power in the U.S. market, ETH is more likely to exhibit characteristics of "having volume but not chasing prices," leading to continuous downward trends or passive breaches at key technical positions.
At the same time, public chain and ecosystem narratives are also diverting market attention and marginal funds. For example, Sei Network has continuously released progress in RWA, institutional adoption, and ecosystem expansion throughout 2025, with Q3 on-chain daily active addresses nearing 824,000, a year-on-year increase of about 93.5%, and daily transaction volume around 2 million, with a quarter-on-quarter increase of about 87%. This combination story of "high performance + RWA + institutional-level infrastructure" is attractive to some institutions and medium to long-term funds, objectively weakening ETH's "absolute leading role" in narrative terms, making it more easily overshadowed by BTC and emerging L1 themes when lacking its own catalysts in the short term.
The compliance and institutionalization bring about the maturity of trading infrastructure and the improvement of long-term pricing frameworks, but at the current stage, they are also accompanied by a cooling of short-term trading enthusiasm and dilution of high-beta speculative opportunities, making each pullback of ETH more inclined towards "price reassessment during a structural transition period," rather than a simple emotional stampede.
Bull-Bear Game: Who is Leading the Price?
From the bull's perspective, the current medium to long-term logic of ETH has not been fundamentally shaken by this round of dropping below $2900. First, the compliance expansion and technological upgrades of leading platforms like OKX provide a more complete liquidity and risk control foundation for mainstream assets. The amplification of regulated trading volume and low-cost channels like X Layer are conducive to attracting more long-term funds to include ETH in their asset allocation baskets. Second, the staking rewards, protocol fee income, and core position of Ethereum in DeFi constitute a kind of "cash flow anchor," which constrains extreme valuation contractions in the medium to long term. Third, the expansion of dollar asset supply in protocols like Aave reflects that on-chain financial infrastructure is still actively operating, and ETH's importance as collateral and a foundational asset in the ecosystem remains prominent.
The bear logic, on the other hand, focuses more on macro and cross-asset risks. Some institutional views suggest that the slowdown in BTC demand momentum, pressure on U.S. market liquidity, and high global interest rates will compress the overall valuation range of risk assets. 10x Research mentioned that the weak performance of mining companies and crypto-related publicly traded companies indicates that the capital market is more conservatively discounting future cash flows and asset values, and this attitude will transmit back to the spot market through ETFs, funds, and over-the-counter structured products, creating valuation pressure on assets like ETH. Additionally, on the industry level, declining user earnings and reduced speculative liquidity can easily lead to a situation where "marginal selling pressure exceeds marginal buying," making prices more susceptible to breaches near key support levels.
Historical data provides a reference for the current bull-bear landscape. Analysts noted that during weak phases, BTC often experiences about three months of oscillation followed by approximately two months of rebound, and has previously established significant support around $80,000. Although historical patterns cannot be simply extrapolated to the present, they suggest that during weak oscillation periods, breaches of integer levels can often be "downward false breakouts" or the starting point of the next round of adjustments, depending on whether BTC can stabilize above core support and whether the market sees new policy or technological narratives reshaping expectations.
The current division of power between bulls and bears mainly reflects: short-cycle traders focus more on price patterns and emotional diffusion, viewing breaches of integer levels as signals for further declines; while medium to long-term funds pay more attention to compliance progress, on-chain income, and ecosystem status, showing higher tolerance for price pullbacks but adopting a more restrained entry rhythm.
Outlook: Three Scenarios and Key Variables
After ETH's drop below $2900, the subsequent path highly depends on several key variables: the price range and volatility of BTC, the marginal capital flow between the U.S. and Asian time zones, and whether ETH itself sees new catalysts in terms of technological upgrades, compliant products (such as related ETFs), RWA, and DeFi activity.
One possible evolution is "continued range oscillation." In this scenario, if the macro environment does not present new significant negatives, and BTC maintains a sideways movement within the current weak range without significantly breaching important support, while Ethereum's on-chain activity and protocol income remain relatively stable, then ETH may establish a new price center around $2800–$3200. In this path, the market will exhibit characteristics of "passive support below, insufficient willingness to chase higher above," and short-term spot and low-leverage contract participants will need to pay more attention to the boundaries of the range and changes in volatility, rather than betting on a single direction.
The second scenario is "further deterioration of risk appetite." If BTC experiences continuous breaches of key support levels, U.S. market liquidity continues to weaken, and regulatory expectations tighten significantly in a short time, then ETH may continue to probe lower into denser trading zones. In previous oscillation ranges, a large number of high-leverage bulls and short-term funds often gather, and once prices enter these areas, liquidation and stop-loss orders being triggered can further amplify volatility. In such cases, the magnitude and speed of price pullbacks may exceed the ranges indicated by conventional technical indicators.
The third scenario is a "structural rebound." If ETH encounters favorable news highly tied to compliant products (such as spot ETFs), core protocol upgrades, or new applications in RWA/DeFi in the near future, while BTC remains relatively stable and new capital enters, then it is possible for ETH to exhibit a relatively strong independent trend. In this path, it is important to be cautious that sentiment and leverage may recover more quickly than fundamentals in the short term, leading to "sentiment + leverage" driven surges, followed by pullbacks to complete time-space exchanges.
Regardless of the scenario, what truly deserves tracking is not a single price point, but the combined changes in the performance of BTC support zones, cross-time zone capital flows, and Ethereum's on-chain income/activity, which determine whether the breach of $2900 is merely a phase noise or the starting point of a larger adjustment.
It is important to emphasize that the above path analysis is based on currently visible data and logical premises, and changes in macro policies, regulatory attitudes, and industry events at different points in time may alter market structures and price movements. This article only attempts to provide an analytical framework to help readers understand the pricing logic of ETH in the context of regulatory expansion and liquidity differentiation cycles, rather than offering directional trading advice or any form of profit commitment.
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