Is Ethereum dead or is it gearing for a comeback? Deep diving at ETH

Ethereum remains at the $2,700 level despite Bitcoin’s resilience, despite being a wider crypto market and a rebound of the top altcoin. Traders seem to have slipped past concerns over China’s advances in Deepseek artificial intelligence and US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

According to data provider Cryptoeq, Altcoin’s biggest price performance remains overwhelming, but this could change as sentiment among traders has become positive.

Ethereum prices fight despite on-chain metrics being bullish

According to Intelligence Trackent’s Santiment on-chain data, Ethereum’s holder count continues to rise steadily. On Tuesday, the number of Ethereum holders rose to 13,898 million, marking an increase in nearly 500,000 new ether holders last week. This supports Altcoin’s bullish paper.

The network realized profit/loss metrics that measure the net profit or loss of ether tokens that traveled daily, showing a large negative spike between January 30th and February 8th.

Many traders who sell their ETHs with lost and are usually considered as signs of surrender. Ethereum Traders may be trading ETH for Stablecoins or other cryptocurrencies.

Ethereum supply held by whales or large wallet investors rose to nearly half a million ETKEN in February 2025, excluding Exchange wallets.

Metrics from derivative traders show changing feelings towards “bully.” After some negative spikes on the chart, the aggregated funding rate across derivative exchanges became positive. According to Santiment data, the total amount or value of all Ether’s open derivative contracts has risen to $8.03 billion.

Derivative traders expect a recovery in Ethereum prices.

Whales accumulate ether, but the institution is indecisive: in the case of bulls

The US spot exchange fund flow has not been shown to Netflows in the past four operating days from far side investors or to Netflows in ether ETFs. On February 10th, Ethereum ETFS recorded a $22.5 million outflow, as shown in the table below.

Whale off-exchanges accumulate more ether, but institutional interest in spot ether ETFs shows no signs of growth. This supports altcoin’s bearish papers, and Ethereum could face a difficult battle when it comes to institutional adoption when compared to Bitcoin (BTC), the biggest cryptocurrency.

LookonChain data shows that institutional profits are gradually changing, with a net inflow of $514,000 as of Tuesday’s February 11th writing.

Experts say the Ethereum value proposition is strong

Marcin Kazmierczak, co-founder and COO of blockchain startup Redstone, spoke to Crypto.News in an exclusive interview.

“ETH prices can fluctuate with wider market sentiments, but their fundamental value proposition remains very strong. The network has evolved into a sophisticated financial ecosystem, with Arbitrum, Base, Zksync and more. Processing over $30 billion of daily transactions across the Layer 2 network.

Short-term price movements often overshadow the rise in network adoption. This ranges from institutional participation in liquid staking to scaling solutions that handle millions of daily transactions. This robust infrastructure and proven usefulness suggests that Ethereum’s long-term trajectory is more about ecosystem growth than temporary market responses. Although flooding of ETH below $2K is possible, it depends on the volatility of the broader crypto market and where negotiations are today. ”

Staked ether plateau: barecase, as institutional attention focuses on Bitcoin

Data from the block shows that ETH’s Staking Ethereum staking contract percentage has dropped to 27%, returning to the level last seen in July 2024.

Currently, 33.5 million ETH continues to illuminate, ensuring that the Ethereum network is safe despite this decline.

Ethereum is important for supporting DEFI and NFT networks, even if institutions shift their focus to Layer 2 protocols or Bitcoin. With increasing opportunities to acquire yields and airdrops from layer 2 chains across the ecosystem, traders may take a measured approach to ether staking.

Thus, the changing landscape of ether staking presents both network opportunities and challenges. As the etheric ecosystem continues to evolve, the dynamics between staking rates, protocol domination, and network security can affect both protocol development and ETH holder behavior.

Ethereum’s long-term outlook is bullish

Ruslan Lienkha, market chief at YouHodler, told Crypto.News in an exclusive interview.

“While Ethereum’s short-term outlook looks bearish, a broader perspective reveals that its prices are approaching a strong, long-term support level, which is what we see today’s weaknesses. Nevertheless, it suggests that institutional investors are seeing an attractive entry point for long-term accumulation.

Historically, these investors tend to acquire positions based on long-term fundamentals rather than short-term price fluctuations, so such accumulation by institutional players would precede a market recovery. It’s often the case. Furthermore, as other major cryptocurrencies have hit new history highs multiple times in recent months, ETH could be placed in a significantly upward movement when market sentiment changes. ”