Less than 72 hours have passed since the ceasefire and its durability already appears questionable.
According to the Kobeissi Letter, US President Donald Trump recently said that Iran is not fully respecting the conditions of the ceasefire.
In this kind of volatile environment, it’s still a stretch to call this a sustainable bull market simply because sentiment has returned to risk.
Ethereum (ETH) reflects this uncertainty in real time. After rallying 6.28% on April 7, ETH has since retreated approximately 2.2%.
Although the decline may appear modest at first glance, it nevertheless suggests that follow-on supply is weakening at higher levels. Instead, positioning data continues to show signs of distribution.
According to Lookonchain, an ETH swing trader recently exited his remaining 1,000 ETH position, locking in a loss of $1.44 million.
In fact, since January 27, 2025, the trader has completed four swing trades (three of which were losses), bringing his total withdrawal to approximately $2.45 million.
Now add to that the recent $8.3 million worth of ETH reportedly sold by the Ethereum Foundation, and the bearish narrative starts to build a little more.
Against this backdrop, Ethereum’s 63% surge in positive funding rates (from the previous level of 0.0024) is starting to look like a relatively large positioning move.
The logic is simple: macroeconomic volatility, technical weakness, and distribution signs all weigh against increasing long exposure.
In setups like this, price usually does not stay balanced for long. Instead, it either triggers a long squeeze if support fails, or it returns quickly if buyers step in and absorb the supply.
The key question is whether Ethereum bulls can step in here and turn this into a bear trap.
Ethereum Long Bias Grows as Staked Supply Begins to Reverse
Leverage in volatile conditions is rarely just speculation. Instead, it tends to be driven more by conviction.
Ethereum’s perp market is starting to show this kind of change. Despite an uncertain macroeconomic context, derivatives signals are improving.
Notably, the buy/sell taker ratio of Ethereum on Binance returned above 1, with a monthly average around 1.016, and remained in positive territory for several consecutive days.
For context, a reading greater than 1 means that the taker’s buy volume is greater than the taker’s sell volume, showing aggressive and sustained buying of perps, with positioning biased toward leveraged long positions.
Combined with the grayscale staking of 83,200 ETH, this starts to look less like randomness and more like a structural flow change.
However, when zooming out, the image changes. Despite the influx of staking, Ethereum’s total staked supply saw its largest decline in nearly a month, with 570,000 ETH moving out of staking, bringing the staking ratio down to 31.4% from a recent all-time high of 31.9%.
In essence, the market is showing a clear divergence.
As a reminder, declining staking levels suggest reduced long-term conviction, as well as potential profit-taking or risk reduction on the part of validators. Combined with the recent capitulation, this suggests a return of supply to the market without a strong supply intervening to absorb it.
In this context, leveraged long positioning looks more like a speculative play.
With Ethereum’s current setup being neutral to weak, the recent pullback looks less like a bear trap and more like a distribution-driven move, with pressure now returning towards the $2,000 support level.
Final summary
- Low macroeconomic stability and mixed on-chain signals create a conflicting setup.
- Leveraged long accumulation in the face of slowing demand conditions increases the risk of a move towards $2,000 support.
