Key Takeaways
Ethereum has withdrawn 1 million ETH from exchanges this month, while Open Interest hit a record $60 billion – A sign of aggressive, non-speculative accumulation.
With July wrapping up, Ethereum [ETH] has clocked in over 50% returns, marking its biggest monthly move since 2022.
However, it’s not just a price spike. ETH’s Open Interest just hit a new all-time high, breaking above $60 billion for the first time. All while the price hovered just 3.4% below the $4k-level at press time.
It’s almost like traders know something the rest of the market hasn’t priced in yet. Hence, the question – Is this strategic conviction, or just blind optimism?
ETH Futures hit record while spot tightens
Ethereum kicked off Q3 with a breakout, printing its biggest monthly candle in ages. Clearly, the risk-reward setup has been heating up.
On-chain, over 98% of ETH supply is now in profit, edging past the 97%-mark that triggered a distribution phase during the last election cycle. Momentum’s strong, but so are the stakes.
Still, even with realized profits jumping to $1.25 billion, right around the election-cycle top at $4,007, the price has held steady. No major breakdown, no signs of panic selling. That’s a strong bid holding the line.
Source: Glassnode
Backing that up, Ethereum kicked off July with exchange reserves near 20 million. Fast forward to now, and we’re down to 19 million – A clean 1 million ETH withdrawn.
That’s not profit-taking, that’s accumulation. Add in the aggressive build-up in Futures liquidity and the OI ripping to new highs, and this looks a lot more like strategic positioning than blind speculation.
With all that in play, is $4k just the next stop in ETH’s momentum leg?
Are Ethereum traders front-running a $4k breakout?
At the time of writing, Ethereum was just 3.4% shy of that $4k-mark. The RSI overheated above 85 as the price tagged $3,941, followed by a mild 0.87% intraday pullback – Classic signs of local rotation kicking in.
Now, opportunistic shorts have been starting to pile in, front-running what they expect to be a local top. With the price nearing its key resistance, fading the move might look like the “smart” trade.
In fact, zoom into the 12H liquidation heatmap, and you’ll spot two thick short liquidity bands forming, with a heavy $115 million cluster sitting just below $3,980. That’s fuel for a squeeze if momentum sticks.
Source: Coinglass
Couple that with robust on-chain fundamentals, and the prevailing Futures positioning looks less like speculative froth and more like calculated leverage deployment.
If this structure holds, Ethereum consolidating below $4k will create ideal conditions for shorts to stack in, compressing the short-side liquidity band. In turn, this will set up a textbook pre-squeeze structure, one that could easily ignite a clean breakout beyond $4k.
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