Ethereum's price has taken a nosedive. It's dropped from over $3,000 to $2,100. The culprit? A select group of market makers.
These big players have been offloading Ethereum like there's no tomorrow. Five top market makers have sold a whopping 130,000 Ether since August 3. That's worth $290 million at today's price.
Wintermute is leading the pack. They've ditched over 47,000 Ethereum. Jump Trading isn't far behind, selling more than 36,000 ETH. Flow Traders comes in third, offloading 3,620 ETH.
Even the smaller fish are getting in on the action. GSR Markets sold 292 ETH. Amber Group parted ways with 65 Ether. This data comes from a research note by 0xScope, shared with Cointelegraph.
Jump Trading kicked off the selling spree. But Wintermute really went to town. 0xScope noted on X: "Jump Trading started dumping ETH this past weekend, ahead of other major market makers, despite low liquidity."
Ethereum's struggling to stay above $2,200. It's a psychological barrier for many traders. More selling from big players could send prices tumbling further. That might trigger panic selling among smaller investors.
The numbers are pretty grim. Ethereum's price plummeted over 22.3% in just 24 hours. At 1:10 p.m. UTC, it was trading at $2,233, according to Cointelegraph data.
It hit rock bottom around 6:30 a.m. UTC. The price briefly touched $2,195 before bouncing back above $2,200. Talk about a rollercoaster ride.
But it's not all doom and gloom. Some traders see a silver lining. Pseudonymous crypto trader MarketWizard thinks Ether could double from here. They're basing this on patterns from two years ago.
MarketWizard wrote on X: "Despite how scary things are right now, ETH is at the sweet spot. Retesting the 2-year base that caused an x2 earlier this year." Crypto's full of surprises, so who knows? Maybe there's light at the end of this tunnel.