I still remember the exact moment in March 2025 when Ethereum finally punched through $4,000 again. Everyone was calling for new all-time highs, me included. Fast forward nine months and here we are – ETH struggling to stay above $3,200 after getting brutally rejected not once, but twice, at the exact same line that used to be support: the 200-day moving average.
There’s something almost something poetic about it. The market has a cruel sense of humor.
Why the 200-Day Moving Average Actually Matters (More Than You Think)
Forget the memes for a second. The 200-day MA isn’t just another colorful line on TradingView. It’s the ultimate battleground between long-term bulls and bears. When price is above it, the macro trend is considered bullish. When it’s below, the macro trend is bearish. Simple, clean, brutal.
Right now Ethereum is trading below its 200-day MA for the first time since early 2023 (if we exclude the brief wick in summer). And it didn’t just dip below – it got violently rejected trying to reclaim it from underneath. Twice. To the dollar. That level sits around $3,400 and has turned from support into a textbook dynamic resistance.
In my experience, when an asset fails to reclaim the 200 MA after losing it from above, the path of least resistance is almost always lower. Always.
The Two Rejections – A Technical Post-Mortem
First rejection came in late November when ETH tagged $3,412 and immediately rolled over. Classic fakeout.
Second rejection happened just this week – price wicked to $3,432 (literally the same zone) and sellers swarmed again. The daily candle left an almost perfect shooting star with expanding downside volume. If you zoomed out, you’d swear someone copy-pasted the previous top.
“Markets love symmetry. Two tests of the same level with diminishing upside momentum almost always resolve lower.”
– Old trading floor wisdom that still works in crypto
The $3,580 Zone – Where Bulls Are Running Out of Road
Above the 200 MA lies the next major confluence: approximately $3,580–$3,600. This zone lines up perfectly with:
- The 0.618 Fibonacci retracement of the entire move down from the all-time high
- The previous breakdown level from October
- A high-volume node from the 2024 range
- The descending trendline from the March top
In plain English: that’s about as heavy as resistance gets. Unless we see an explosive move with huge volume (think spot CVD flipping hard green), Ethereum is extremely likely to form another lower high right there.
And honestly? Volume has been tragic on the way up lately. Each bounce since October has come on lighter and lighter buying pressure. That’s not how sustainable bull runs start.
Where Is the Next Realistic Support?
If you pull up the monthly chart, one level screams louder than everything else: $2,500.
That’s not just a random round number. It represents:
- The Value Area Low (VAL) of the entire 2024–2025 composite volume profile
- The 0.786 Fibonacci retracement
- Previous all-time high resistance from 2021 (now potential support)
- Monthly 200 MA (currently around $2,380 and rising slowly)
Translation: $2,500 is the line in the sand. A clean monthly close below that would open the floodgates toward $1,800–$2,000 rather quickly. And yes, I know that sounds insane to some of you who were buying the “ETH to $10k in 2025” narrative, but markets don’t care about narratives – they care about liquidity and order flow.
ETF Outflows Are Telling the Real Story
While everyone was busy watching price, something far more worrying has been happening under the hood: spot Ethereum ETFs have been bleeding.
Just this week we saw another $75 million+ in net outflows with zero meaningful inflows to offset. That’s institutional money walking away – exactly the opposite of what happened when ETH broke $4,000 earlier this year.
Remember: retail follows price, institutions follow conviction. Right now institutions are quietly hitting the exit while retail is still hoping for “one more leg up.” That divergence rarely ends well for the late bulls.
On-Chain Metrics Aren’t Helping Either
Let’s run through the ugly list real quick:
- Exchange reserves rising for 6 straight weeks
- Realized profit/loss ratio flipping negative again
- Active addresses dropping off a cliff outside of brief spikes
- MVRV Z-score back below 2 (historically a local top zone, not bottom)
- Long-term holder supply at all-time highs (meaning they aren’t selling… yet)
The only mildly bullish signal right now is that whales have been quietly accumulating between $2,800–$3,100. But accumulation without price follow-through usually means they’re early – or wrong.
What Would Change My Mind (The Bull Case)
I’m not married to the bear side. If Ethereum manages to:
- Close a weekly candle above $3,600 with strong volume
- Spot CVD flips green and stays there
- ETF flows turn positive again
- Bitcoin dominance starts rolling over
…then I’ll happily flip bullish and admit I was wrong. But right now? None of those things are happening. In fact, the exact opposite is playing out.
Final Thoughts – Prepare, Don’t Predict
Look, I’ve been through enough cycles to know that getting emotional about price direction is a losing game. Ethereum could absolutely rip to $5,000 in the next 90 days if macro liquidity turns back on and Bitcoin breaks $100k cleanly.
But based on the current technical structure, volume profile, fund flows, and market psychology? The risk/reward heavily favors the downside for now.
My base case remains a sweep of the lows around $2,700–$2,800 followed by a slow grind toward $2,500 before any meaningful reversal pattern can form. That’s where the real buyers tend to step in – when hope is lost and headlines turn apocalyptic.
Until then, staying patient and keeping powder dry feels like the smart move. The market will give us plenty of warning when the real bottom is in. It always does.
Stay sharp out there.
