ETH absorbed $800M selling in the past week, still on track to break resistance

$ETH markets absorbed $800M in selling for just the past week. Some of the recent selling came from high-profile whales, but $ETH still improved its sentiment.

$ETH now stands just below a key resistance level at around $2,300, potentially sparking more expansion to the $2,400 range. The token grew despite the recent selling from whale wallets, absorbing $800M in the past week.

$ETH expanded in the past week, despite absorbing $800M in selling from whales. | Source: CoinGecko.

The Ethereum fear and greed index switched to 67 points, signifying greed for the first time since January. $ETH open interest also increased to levels not seen since early 2026, breaking above $14B for the first time in months.

Following the recent general market recovery, $ETH showed that the pessimism was unwarranted, and the token quickly returned to higher demand.

$ETH whales are repositioning for a better average price

The recent whale selling does not necessarily mean an abandonment of $ETH. During past bull cycles, whales rebalanced their portfolios to achieve a lower average price. $ETH whales are showing they may be here to stay, using the token as a source of staking passive income.

As a sign of long-term interest, the Ethereum validator queue still has over 3M $ETH waiting, with an average waiting time of 52 days to start as a validator node. There are also no signs of whales exiting the Beacon chain contract. Over 31% of $ETH is staked, for a total of 37.7M.

As the Ethereum ecosystem matured, panic-selling is now rarer, as well as large cascading liquidations. Some $ETH-based loans were liquidated or caused forced selling, but overall, $ETH retains significant long-term confidence.

Long-term $ETH holders may be facing some price pressure, as only 38% of the supply is held with unrealized gains. However, the recent market conditions show Ethereum can absorb the selling, and some whales intend to hold.

The amount of $ETH held in strategic reserves is up to 7.27M $ETH, breaking above 6% of the supply. Bitmine continued to buy more $ETH in the past month, holding 4.5M tokens and now up to 75% of its target treasury.

$ETH rally boosts DeFi activity

$ETH at a higher price range remains beneficial for DeFi activity. Currently, a big liquidation cluster stands around $1,891 per $ETH, mostly affecting Compound loans.

With the current breakout above $2,300, there is no danger of a dip to a lower range. Value held in the Ethereum ecosystem expanded to $59B from recent local lows, while DeFi in general locked in $99B.

$ETH remains the backbone of DeFi lending, while posting over 2M daily transactions, near an all-time peak. The long-term prospects of the network also led to record-low exchange reserves of just 15M $ETH. Whales are also moving in to buy $ETH at lower prices and withdraw from exchanges.