Ethereum Price Forecast - ETH-USD Holds Below $3K While $6B Options Expiry and ETF Outflows Cap Any Rally

Ethereum price: compression below $3,000 with downside risk still dominant

Ethereum trades just below $2,950–$3,000, stabilizing after the drop toward $2,850 but still inside a corrective structure. The sharp November–early December selloff has eased, yet every rebound into the $2,900–$3,000 band is sold, not accumulated. Price action is compression under resistance, not a confirmed recovery, and buyers have not shown the strength needed to regain trend control.

Daily trend and EMA resistance zones

On the daily chart Ethereum sits under all key EMAs, with the 20-day EMA near $3,005, the 50-day around $3,160 and the 100–200-day zone stretching toward roughly $3,390. This stacked configuration is decisively bearish and has rejected every bounce since mid-November. The 20-day EMA at ~$3,005 is the first supply shelf repeatedly capping shallow rebounds, while the 50-day near $3,160 is the critical line that separates countertrend rallies from genuine trend repair. Daily RSI in the low-to-mid 40s confirms weak momentum but no longer oversold, matching a consolidation phase after a strong decline rather than the start of a new uptrend.

Intraday repair under the $2,950–$2,980 ceiling

On 30-minute charts Ethereum has carved higher lows since the December 24 flush, with Supertrend support climbing toward roughly $2,920 and Parabolic SAR dots now beneath price, signalling a short-term shift from aggressive selling to modest repair. Even so, the $2,950–$2,980 band remains a firm intraday ceiling where sellers repeatedly fade every push higher. Volatility has compressed around $2,900, so trading is dominated by range rotation and mean reversion until this band is broken with volume.

On-chain flows and exchange reserves signal persistent distribution

On-chain data show exchange reserves climbing from about 16.2 million ETH to roughly 16.6 million ETH in December, an increase near 400,000 ETH moving onto exchanges. A single OG whale deposited around 100,000 ETH to Binance, while institutional buyers such as BitMine and Trend Research accumulated about 67,886 ETH and 46,379 ETH respectively, together still smaller than the net inflow. Moving coins onto exchanges usually precedes selling or liquidity events, so the balance of flows still points to distribution pressure outweighing spot accumulation, limiting the quality of any bounce.

Leverage, derivatives positioning, and the $6B options expiry

Ethereum’s estimated leverage ratio has returned to the 0.72–0.76 zone, similar to the level seen during a major prior liquidation day, showing that traders remain heavily levered despite some reduction in open interest. Around $37.3 billion in futures open interest coupled with lower trading volume makes positioning fragile and sensitive to relatively small spot moves. Recent liquidations have hit longs more than shorts, proving that late dip-buyers are still being squeezed. Into the week roughly $6 billion in ETH options are expiring, with calls more than 2.2x puts notional but concentrated between $3,500 and $5,000 and now mostly out-of-the-money. Puts are clustered between $2,200 and $2,900, so a $2,700–$2,900 settlement favours bears by hundreds of millions of dollars, and even a $2,901–$3,000 close still leaves bears ahead; bulls only gain real advantage above roughly $3,100–$3,200. Dealer hedging around these strikes is helping pin spot near $3,000 and sets up a potential volatility release once expiry is cleared.

Coinbase premium and US demand profile

The Ethereum Coinbase Premium Index has pushed deeper negative to around -0.08, the weakest level in a month, meaning ETH trades cheaper on Coinbase’s USD market than on Binance’s USDT market. A persistent negative premium indicates US-based participants are either selling or unwilling to bid aggressively, so the structural US spot bid is absent. As long as this premium remains negative, US flows are a drag rather than a catalyst for a durable upside move.

ETF flows and institutional risk appetite

Spot Ethereum ETFs are now on track for a second consecutive month of net outflows, with November registering about -$1.42 billion and December already exceeding -$560 million. The 30-day moving average of flows into both Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs has stayed negative since early November, confirming a phase of muted participation and partial withdrawal from institutional allocators. Without renewed ETF inflows, ETH lacks a strong structural demand engine, so rallies depend on shorter-term traders rather than long-horizon capital.

Key levels to watch in the current compression

On the downside the $2,900–$2,880 band is the first critical support, having repeatedly attracted bids and aligning with recent intraday lows; a decisive break and daily close below this zone would reopen risk toward roughly $2,750. On the upside Ethereum must reclaim $3,000 on a daily closing basis just to tilt short-term momentum, with stronger confirmation only if price can sustain above the $3,160 region where the 50-day EMA and prior breakdown area converge. Above that, the next important resistance cluster sits in the $3,300–$3,390 band around the higher EMAs, which currently define the top of the corrective channel.

Risk skew: consolidation base versus renewed downside

Structurally Ethereum is no longer in a phase of aggressive forced selling, but it is also not yet in a healthy accumulation regime. Rising exchange reserves, elevated leverage, negative Coinbase premium, and two straight months of ETF outflows collectively argue for continued consolidation with a downward bias rather than a clean trend reversal. As long as ETH trades under the 50-day EMA near $3,160 and remains pinned around the heavy options and futures levels, the path of least resistance is a choppy range with event-driven spikes, where breaks of $2,880 or sustained closes above $3,160 will likely decide whether the next major leg is a deeper reset or a genuine attempt to rebuild an uptrend.

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