Ethereum Price Forecast: ETH-USD Below $3K: BitMine Loads 3.97M ETH While ETFs Bleed Cash

Ethereum Price Forecast: ETH-USD Below $3K: BitMine Loads 3.97M ETH While ETFs Bleed Cash

ETH-USD trades around $2,950 under a death-cross downtrend, with Senate crypto delays, shrinking active addresses and ETF outflows pulling against deep-pocket treasury buying | That's TradingNEWS

TradingNEWS Archive 12/17/2025 5:15:12 PM
Crypto ETH/USD ETH USD

Ethereum (ETH-USD): Sub-$3,000 Price Is A Conviction Test, Not A Collapse

Spot Picture: ETH-USD Stuck Between $2,900 Support And Failing $3,100 Attempts

Ethereum (ETH-USD) is trading around the psychological $3,000 line, repeatedly losing it and reclaiming it without conviction. U.Today shows ETH at about $3,017, up 2.83% in 24 hours after breaking local resistance at $2,974 and aiming toward the $3,100 band. Finance Magnates frames ETH around $2,950, down 0.5% and printing a fourth consecutive red session. BeInCrypto places ETH at $2,929, its third drop below $3,000 this month after a failed breakout. The BitMine/ETF flow piece describes ETH near $2,950 after roughly a 12% weekly slide, with price capped by declining exponential moving averages. Intraday, the break of $2,974 gave bulls a short-lived push toward the $3,100 region; on the daily chart, ETH has repeatedly bounced from the $2,894–$2,900 zone, but every attempt to turn $3,000 into solid support has faded quickly.

Trend Structure: Wide ETH-USD Channel Between $2,624 And $3,396 With Weak Volume

On the higher timeframe, ETH-USD trades in the middle of a wide range with support around $2,624 and resistance near $3,396. Current price action around $2,900–$3,000 sits right in the mid-band, not at an extreme. U.Today notes volume has dropped, which usually points to sideways or drifting behaviour, not an impulsive trend. Local support has been confirmed multiple times near $2,894–$2,900, while the short-term upside objective is $3,100–$3,200. The broader structure is simple: ETH is neither in panic nor euphoria; it is stuck in a fat range with participation fading.

Macro And Regulation: Senate Delay Keeps ETH-USD Under A Risk-Off Overhang

The macro environment from the Finance Magnates piece is negative for ETH-USD. The U.S. Senate Banking Committee has delayed detailed work on the core crypto market structure bill into early 2026, with disagreements around financial stability, market integrity and ethics. The 2026 calendar is already crowded with funding and midterm politics, so further delays are realistic. Around 75% of the top 100 coins trade below key moving averages, signalling broad weakness and “consolidation fatigue”. Bitcoin (BTC-USD), trading near $87,700, is stuck in a sideways band with resistance at $92,000–$94,000 and lower support near $85,600–$84,000, with a death cross already printed and a downside target around $74,000. Because ETH remains correlated to BTC, any move by BTC-USD toward $74,000 would strongly increase the probability of ETH probing deeper layers of support such as $2,700, $2,200 or even $1,400. The combination of regulatory uncertainty, risk-off mood and weak liquidity reduces follow-through on every ETH bounce.

On-Chain Picture: MVRV Compression And Seven-Month Low In Ethereum Active Addresses

On-chain data for ETH-USD is consistent with weakening conviction. BeInCrypto highlights that ETH at $2,929 represents the third failure to hold above $3,000 this month. The MVRV Long/Short Difference has moved below zero, meaning long-term and short-term holders are sitting at similar profitability levels. Neither group holds dominant unrealised gains and there is no large profit cushion to absorb volatility. If this difference falls further, short-term-holder pain can dominate, increasing forced-selling risk. At the same time, active Ethereum addresses have dropped to a seven-month low, signalling lower participation in the network exactly while price is soft. Less on-chain activity usually means reduced perceived opportunity to transact or deploy capital at current levels and reflects fading confidence. The pattern is typical of a late-stage correction where most weak holders are gone, but the remaining base is apathetic, not aggressive.

Flows: BitMine Accumulates 3.97M ETH As ETFs See $225M Outflows

Flow data draws a sharp line between treasury-style buyers and listed-product sellers. BitMine, Tom Lee’s Ethereum treasury vehicle, bought another $140 million of ETH-USD when price slipped below $3,000, raising its holdings to roughly 3.97 million ETH with a notional value around $11.6 billion. BitMine’s stated goal is to control about 5% of the circulating ETH supply, which is a clear long-horizon bet on Ethereum despite current weakness. Its equity rallied after the purchase, which suggests shareholders approve the strategy. In contrast, U.S.-listed Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs saw about $582 million in one-day net outflows, with Bitcoin ETFs losing roughly $357.6 million and Ethereum ETFs nearly $225 million. Analysts attribute this to macro de-risking tied to U.S. equity volatility and Federal Reserve uncertainty, not to direct stress in ETH itself. Spot ETH outflows are around $18.7 million and open interest in Ethereum derivatives has declined to roughly $37 billion as leverage comes off. Fast money is cutting risk through ETFs and derivatives while slow money is scaling into ETH on balance sheets; that mix fits an asset shifting from a pure momentum phase into a value/accumulation phase, with downside risk still very much alive.

Technical Setup: Death Cross, EMA Caps, And Lagging ETH-USD Momentum

Technically, ETH-USD is still in a downtrend despite structural support. The daily chart has already printed a death cross, and price sits below key exponential moving averages. The 20-day EMA is near $3,075 and the 50-day EMA around $3,250, both overhead. There is a heavier resistance band between $3,350 and $3,435, and another reference level around $3,131. ETH currently trades below all of them, which is not a bullish configuration. On lower timeframes, ETH respects a rising trendline with higher lows on the four-hour and daily charts, but that reflects stabilisation more than a launchpad. RSI is hovering in a neutral-to-bearish band and MACD is close to a bullish cross but still negative, so any upside signal is weak until the histogram flips materially. As long as ETH-USD remains below $3,075 and especially below $3,250, every bounce is technically just a counter-trend rally inside a broader corrective phase.

Support Map: $2,900, $2,880, $2,762, $2,700–$2,750, $2,624, $2,200 And $1,400 For ETH-USD

The downside levels for ETH-USD are clearly layered. Immediate support sits around $2,900–$2,880, which aligns with the repeated bounces near $2,894. If that zone breaks cleanly, the next serious level is $2,762, highlighted as a critical floor; losing it opens the path to $2,700–$2,750, where deeper spot demand is expected to appear. Below that, $2,624 marks the structural lower edge of the broad range. In a harsher macro shock, with Bitcoin sliding toward $74,000 and risk assets selling off, the next technical extension levels at $2,200 (the June low) and $1,400 (the April minimum) become realistic washout targets. The most natural next magnet on a break of $2,880–$2,900 is the $2,700–$2,750 band, while $2,200 and $1,400 represent extreme stress points rather than base-case expectations.

Resistance Map: $3,000, $3,075, $3,100–$3,200, $3,131, $3,250, $3,350–$3,435 And $3,396

Upside levels for ETH-USD are equally well defined. The first line that actually matters is the cluster around $3,000 and $3,075, where psychological resistance overlaps with the 20-day EMA. ETH needs to reclaim and hold that band as support before any serious trend change can be discussed. The next region is $3,100–$3,200, including $3,131 as a horizontal reference; a sustained move above ~$3,130 would show that ETH is finally breaking free from the current two-month downtrend. The 50-day EMA near $3,250 is the real trend-transition marker: holding above it would signal a genuine shift from correction to early uptrend. Beyond that, the resistance cluster at $3,350–$3,435 and the broader cap at $3,396 correspond to the upper boundary of the wide range. Only above those levels does ETH-USD convincingly re-enter a momentum-up environment.

Relative Structure: ETH-USD Is Stable, But Solana Leads The Breakout Race

Against SOL-USD and AVAX-USD, Ethereum looks structurally solid but tactically late. Coinpedia’s comparison shows ETH continuing to respect its rising daily trend support, with higher lows on both four-hour and daily timeframes, but still trapped below near-term resistance with momentum indicators failing to expand. RSI stays neutral-bearish and MACD is close to a bullish crossover inside negative territory, which fits a slowly-building base rather than a ready-to-go breakout. Avalanche shows wider swings, inconsistent higher lows and messy structure, with volatility expansion that can easily turn into fake moves. Solana stands out instead: SOL trades in tight compression right under resistance, with consistent higher lows and sharply contracted volatility, which is textbook pre-breakout structure. RSI is elevated but not overheated and invalidation levels are clean. If Bitcoin resolves higher out of its own consolidation, Solana is best positioned to move first and hardest, while ETH-USD likely follows as a second-wave participant rather than the leader.

Scenarios For ETH-USD: Bearish Extension, Sideways Base Or Staged Recovery

Combining price, on-chain data, flows and macro, ETH-USD sits in a three-way scenario tree. The bearish extension path remains open while ETH trades below $3,075; that path starts with a break of $2,900–$2,880 and $2,762, followed by a slide into $2,700–$2,750 and possibly toward $2,624, with $2,200 and $1,400 reserved for a deeper macro washout. The sideways base-building scenario keeps ETH-USD oscillating between $2,624 and $3,396, clustering around $2,900–$3,000 with low volume, weak on-chain activity and ongoing treasury accumulation such as BitMine’s buying. The staged recovery scenario requires ETH to hold $2,880–$2,900, reclaim $3,000 and $3,075, then push through $3,131 and target $3,250 with visibly stronger spot flows and network usage; only then does the corrective structure genuinely flip into a new upswing.

ETH-USD Stance: Hold With Bearish Short-Term Skew And Accumulation Only Near $2,700

On the numbers provided, ETH-USD is a hold with a bearish short-term tilt and medium-term upside optionality. The price pattern shows repeated failures above $3,000 and about a 12% weekly drop, the trend shows a death cross and price trapped below $3,075 and $3,250, on-chain metrics show MVRV compression and a seven-month low in active addresses, and flows highlight ETF outflows versus aggressive BitMine accumulation toward 3.97 million ETH and a 5% supply target. ETH-USD is not collapsing, but it is not a clean long either. From a positioning standpoint, the rational accumulation band is roughly $2,700–$2,900 for investors willing to stomach the risk of a spike toward $2,200 if macro stress increases. Validation on the upside demands daily closes above $3,075 first, then $3,131 and $3,250 with improving volume and on-chain engagement; until that happens, every rally is a move to fade rather than a breakout to chase.

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