Ether prices fell to $3,994 during Thursday morning trading in Asia, its lowest level since early August.
The asset was trading marginally above $4,000 at the time of writing, after shedding another 3.3% on the day. ETH is currently down 19% from its all-time high, and most of those losses have come over the past week.
The sharp decline comes amid a general crypto market pullback that has seen total market capitalization shrink below $4 trillion. However, Ether is getting hit much harder following its epic 225% surge from April to August.
Correction to $3,500 Possible
Analyst ‘Sykodelic’ predicted a $3,900 bottom over the next few days as oversold signals grow stronger.
Macro trader and investor Jason Pizzino said Ether’s abnormal moves “always lead to corrections of at least 20%, generally more like 30%-40%,”
“It seems like Ethereum wants to go lower,” said analyst Ted Pillows, who added that the “next support level is around the $3,800 level, which is a good zone to accumulate.”
A number of analysts have predicted that ETH would pull back to the $3,500 level, which will take it down around 30% from its peak, which is not unusual for a major correction.
The price slump comes amid aggressive accumulation by digital asset treasuries and whale entities, suggesting that weak retail hands are panicking.
Ten whales have bought more than 210,000 ETH worth $86s million over-the-counter, said ‘Ash Crypto’ on Thursday, before adding:
“While you are panic selling, whales are buying your cheap Ethereum.”
Meanwhile, the balance of Ethereum on centralized exchanges has fallen to its lowest levels since 2016, according to data from Glassnode and CryptoQuant.
“Although this seems contradictory, as low exchange balances reflect decreased short-term selling, this divergence hints at a contrarian accumulation signal while macro headwinds could soon ease into a rebound for Ethereum,” said Nick Ruck, director at LVRG Research.
Altcoins in Pain
While Ethereum is leading the altcoin bloodbath, several other assets are seeing similar or worse losses today.
Avalanche (AVAX) has dumped 7.7% on the day in a fall to $31.38 following its stellar doubling in price in less than three months.
Pump.fun (PUMP), Mantle (MNT), Cronos (CRO), and Sky (SKY) have lost a similar amount over the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile, Flare (FLR) and Immutable (IMX) are the only top one hundred altcoins in the green at the moment.
