After dropping below $1,800 at the beginning of the month, Ethereum price has since recovered to the $2,000 level, which is considered a psychological support zone for many traders. However, over the past week, the price has shown bearish pressure and struggled to sustain the $2,000 level.
Shark activity indicates potential increased volatility in the Ethereum markets
In a post on the X platform, crypto analyst João Wedson stated that there has been a significant change in the behavior of large Ethereum holders. The market expert also noted that there could be something deeper going on beneath the surface.
🐳The sharks continue to distribute and sell Ethereum.
Addresses with between 100K and 1 million ETH have seen their reserves drop significantly over the past 90 days. This is a significant and interesting change.
What’s even more remarkable is that most of this decline is not… pic.twitter.com/UBlikDUQf3
— Joao Wedson (@joao_wedson) February 27, 2026
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Wedson confirmed that wallet addresses holding between 100,000 and 1,000,000 ETH have significantly reduced their holdings over the past 90 days, indicating that large holders are selling or transferring large amounts of ETH. What is more interesting is that this shaving is done from whale purses.
🐳The sharks continue to distribute and sell Ethereum.
Addresses with between 100K and 1 million ETH have seen their reserves drop significantly over the past 90 days. This is a significant and interesting change.
What’s even more remarkable is that most of this decline is not… pic.twitter.com/UBlikDUQf3
— Joao Wedson (@joao_wedson) February 27, 2026
In other words, major private ETH holders, institutions, or early stage investors may actively reduce their exposure, and this may indicate profit-taking, risk-taking, or readiness for volatility. Overall, Wedson noted that when this group of whales begins to open up, it often means that structural change is occurring below the surface.
As of this writing, the price of Ethereum is around $2,010, representing a jump of around 5% over the past 24 hours.
A decline in global fundamentals that affects ETH the most
According to a recent chain observation, this strategic move by large ETH holders may be related to worsening macroeconomic conditions. An analyst with the pseudonym Darkfost, in a Quicktake post on the CryptoQuant platform, revealed that the global economic base is slowly losing momentum, and Ethereum seems to be the most affected by far.
Starting with the global climate, Perkfast cited the core Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures inflation at the wholesale level. Core PPI MoM at the level of +0.8% confirmed the stability of inflation and suggests that the Federal Reserve will not cut interest rates soon, which is unfavorable for risk assets.
In addition, rising tensions between the United States and Iran add to geopolitical uncertainty. On Saturday, the US and Israel announced military action against Iran, sending crypto prices down over the weekend.
However, the Ethereum Open Interest (OI) on all exchanges decreased from 7.79 million ETH to 5.8 million ETH, with about 2 million of this number concentrated on Binance. This indicates that traders are closing positions and leverage is decreasing and exposure to ETH is also decreasing.
In addition, Notional OI, which measures the total dollar value of open contracts, experienced a sharp decline when positions were closed. For example, Binance’s open interest fell from more than $12.6 billion to $4.1 billion, while Bybit fell by two-thirds to $1.9 billion. This indicates a broad transfer across the entire market, not just one platform.
Overall, the Ethereum derivatives market is declining as traders lose leverage in response to macroeconomic and geopolitical pressures. Moreover, the current market conditions have not been particularly encouraging for investors’ risk appetite – as seen in the ETH sharks.
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Featured image from iStock, chart from TradingView
