Key takeaways:

• The ether price struggled as investors pulled $225 million from spot ETFs and Ethereum staking rewards underperformed compared to stablecoin yields.

• Recent updates to the Ethereum network and plans to improve wallet security are positive, but have not stimulated demand for Ether.

Over the past month, the price of ether (ETH) has repeatedly failed to stay above $2,100, gradually undermining investor confidence in the altcoin. Even with a 7% gain between Monday and Tuesday, ETH derivatives indicators suggest a lack of interest in leveraged bullish positions, potentially signaling that the bears remain in control.

ETH perpetual futures fell to negative territory on Tuesday, signaling increased demand for miniature (bearish) positions. More importantly, the rate has remained below the neutral range of 6% to 12% over the past month. Part of this investor disappointment is a 54% drop in prices in six months, even as supply chain cooling also played a significant role.

Weekly base layer fees on the Ethereum network have averaged $2.3 million over the past month, down from a peak of $8 million in early February. While the number of 7-day transactions has stabilized at close to 14 million, the industry’s current focus on Layer 2 packet scalability has not yet generated novel demand for native Ether.

Unlike the perpetual futures markets, the ETH options risk ratio hovered around the neutral range of -6% to +6% on Tuesday. Put (put) options are trading at a 7% premium to call (call) instruments, suggesting that confidence is slowly returning among Ether bulls. Moreover, no competitor has yet challenged Ethereum’s $56 billion total value locked (TVL).

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) saw net outflows of $225 million between Thursday and Monday, reversing inflows of $169 million recorded on Wednesday. This metric serves as a proxy for institutional demand, which is currently held back by a native staking reward rate of 2.8%. For comparison, the yield of stablecoins on the Sky Lending platform (formerly MakerDAO) was higher at 3.75%.

ETH ETF demand weakness and Ethereum roadmap concerns

The excitement around the approval of ETF staking in the US in slow 2025 has not yet translated into sustainable demand. It could be argued that the negative result was simply a result of bad luck, as the launch coincided with a broader cryptocurrency market downturn that began in early October, with total market capitalization reaching an all-time high of $4 trillion.

Related: Was Ethereum’s “ultrasonic money” a mistake? ETH is down 65% against BTC since trading

Since October 2025, ETH has underperformed the broader cryptocurrency market and there is no indication that this trend will reverse. Investor sentiment is also being dampened by a staggering $735 million net loss from Ethereum treasury firm Sharplink (SBET US) in 2025. The company, led by Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin, released those financial results on Monday.

The rate of native chain scalability may have impacted the negative performance of the Ether network. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, for example, said Saturday that account abstraction, equivalent to intelligent accounts, will likely be rolled out “within a year,” after more than a decade of work on the solution. Transactions will be able to reference each other’s data, enabling quantum-proof wallets.

Another advantage of the upcoming Ethereum Hegot fork is the payment of gas fees in non-ETH tokens using special-purpose decentralized exchanges, while adding “public general-purpose storage” and removing “public broadcasters” from privacy platforms such as Railgun and Tornado Cash. Buterin also said he expects slot and deadline time to “gradually decrease” in the long term.

Overall, ETH derivatives and onchain activity indicate low confidence in a bullish breakout above $2,200, but at the same time there is no indication of deterioration or bear dominance.