Ethereum trades firmly above $2,300 despite poor retail demand

The cryptocurrency market has continued its excellent start to the week as Bitcoin approaches the $82,000 psychological level.

Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, is down by less than 1% in the last 24 hours but has held steady above $2,300 despite persistent bearish signals across key metrics.

Derivatives data suggest a growing bearish bias

Ether is trading above $2,360 at press time on Wednesday, down by less than 1% in the last 24 hours.

The onchain supply metric shows that retailers have been strong distributors in the past week, with wallets in the bracket of 100-1K and 1K-10K ETH offloading roughly 820K ETH. 

The price decline comes as the cohort recorded major selling activity in the previous week, bringing their total distribution in the past two weeks to nearly 1.5 million ETH.

Most of the recent sell-off likely flowed from short-term holders, as evidenced by a steep decline in the 90-day Mean Coin Age metric.

This metric tracks the average number of days coins in that cohort have stayed in their current wallets.

In addition to that, investors have also reduced the number of Ether tokens they have staked.

On-chain data shows that investors unstaked roughly 300K ETH in the past week, its largest weekly outflow since November.

Despite retail investors reducing their exposure to the market, whales have maintained positive sentiment, accumulating 230K ETH last week.

The derivative market continues to show a bearish leaning.

According to CoinGlass, Ether’s funding rates have remained negative, indicating declining retail interest.

Furthermore, the futures Open Interest (OI) also remains slightly above 14 million ETH, suggesting lingering cautious sentiment.

Ethereum Price Forecast

The ETH/USD 4-hour chart remains bullish and efficient as it struggles to surpass the $2,388 resistance level. 

Currently, the chart remains positive as Ether’s price holds above the 20-, 50-, and 100-day Exponential Moving Averages (EMAs), which are clustered between roughly $2,260 and $2,361.

The price action suggests an underlying uptrend with the latest push stalling just under nearby resistance.

The momentum indicators show that the bulls remain in control.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is around 60, and a Stochastic Oscillator (Stoch) reading in the mid-70s hints at firm but not yet extreme bullish momentum.

If the bulls remain in control, they would encounter initial resistance at the 100-day EMA and the horizontal barrier near $2,388.

A close above this level would expose other resistance zones at $2,746 and then $3,411.

However, if the bearish trend grows stronger, immediate dynamic support is provided by the 20- and 50-day EMAs at $2,305 and $2,260, respectively. 

Failure to defend these levels would see the bulls set up demand zones at $2,211 and $2,107, ahead of deeper supports at $1,909 and $1,741.

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