Ethereum continues its bearish momentum towards the $2,000 mark as selling pressure persists from several sides.
Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, sold the leading altcoin as the price fell to the $2,300 zone.
According to Lookonchain data, Buterin sold 2,961.5 ETH for $6.6 million over the past three days. Its average sale price is $2,228.
ETH spot exchange traded funds in the United States have seen strong outflows since January 20, with very few inflows.
According to Farside data, spot ETH ETFs saw a net outflow of $79.4 million on February 4, led by ETHA, a BlackRock investment product, selling $58.9 million.
On the other hand, some investors and whales have been accumulating Ethereum despite the prevailing bearish momentum. A
Major centralized crypto exchanges saw a net outflow of 143,640 ETH, worth $335 million.
Following the bloodbath over cryptocurrency prices, the decentralized finance sector also experienced a collapse.
According to DefiLlama data, DeFi’s total value locked decreased by 3.4% in 24 hours to $99.8 billion, a level last seen in May 2025.
Leading protocols Aave and Lido saw drops of 4.5% and 7% in their TVLs, respectively.
With the price decline, traders who were betting on a price decline have made significant gains.
For example, Lookonchain data shows that a whale on Hyperliquide, calling it the “super short 0x20c2,” made a $102.7 million profit betting against ETH.
Another whale made $55.5 million by shorting Bitcoin, ETH and Solana.
ETH is down 29% over the past seven days and is trading at $2,100 at the time of writing. Despite the sell-off, the leading altcoin is seeing increased trading activity, with its daily trading volume increasing 11% to $51 billion.
Read original story Vitalik Buterin abandons ETH and DeFi TVL falls below $100 billion by Wahid Pessarlay on Coinspeaker.com
