As part of the bearish downturn of the crypto market, Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) has been experiencing a major fall in price levels.
Down from its all-time high of $4,812, Ethereum is currently trading at $1,134. The leading altcoin is sitting almost 80% below its all-time high, alongside most other cryptocurrencies.
Ethereum’s severe capital bleed-out is part of a falling global economy, with stock markets and other asset classes also gravely impacted. Despite Ethereum’s downtrend, investors may be optimistic to purchase Ethereum due to its upcoming merge later this year, which transitions Ethereum from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake.
The shift to PoS looks to improve Ethereum by making its tokenomics deflationary. Investors seeing this as a bullish event may look to purchase Ether tokens.
However, there are a plethora of bearish factors furthering the decline seen in Ethereum’s price movement. Here are three to consider:
- There is extensive illiquidity of Staked Ether (CRYPTO: stETH) across numerous major crypto firms. Due to several cryptocurrency borrowing and lending firms, such as Celsius, facing insolvency and pausing withdrawals, investors are unable to withdraw Staked Ether. This has created psychological fear amongst retail and institutional investors causing Ethereum’s price to continue its fall.
- On-chain data indicates that there has been a large inflow of Ethereum into hot wallets from cold wallets in recent weeks. In other words, analytics reveal investors are taking money out of cold storage to trade onto exchanges. This suggests a bearish sentiment across Ethereum holders in the market.
- The macroeconomic environment globally is recessionary. Following hyper-inflation occurring in recent years, the Federal Reserve increased interest rates by 75 basis points. Therefore, the quantitive tightening being undertaken by overseeing bodies, alongside fears of an impending recession, is causing large-scale capital outflow from speculative asset classes, such as cryptocurrency.
Consequently, Ethereum has seen an extreme fall in its price. As uncertainty looms over the market, investors must proceed in the short term with caution. In the long term, as cryptocurrency markets will recover, the biggest altcoin should be seeing new all-time highs.