Ethereum Leverage Reset Complete – Time For Market Re-Accumulation?

[Ben Graham]

Ethereum presently trades around $3,000 following a broader crypto market rebound in the last week. During this time, the market’s largest altcoin gained by 7.22%, providing a much-needed relief after an extended correction that dominated the majority of the last two months. As price stabilizes, crypto analytics platform XWIN Research Japan shares a forward-looking assessment of Ethereum’s outlook, especially considering developments in the futures market.

Ethereum Bulls Buy The Dip After Weak Position Exits

Amid the widespread correction of the crypto market in Q4 2025, Ethereum’s prices crashed from $4,700 to as low as $2,900, representing a 38% price decline. XWIN Research Japan reports this price fall coincided with certain relevant developments in the futures market.

In particular, Ethereum’s open interest across all exchanges dropped from $21 billion to around $17 billion in late November, as overleveraged long positions were closed down, forcing traders to open new positions with moderate leverage size. Meanwhile, funding rates stayed positive but declined to around 0.002, meaning that the dominant bullish sentiment from mid-2025 greatly reduced.

Looking at on-chain data, the Market Value to Realized Value (MVRV) is at 1.27, while Binance data shows it to be around 1.0, both values indicating Ethereum is in a neutral to fair value zone, suggesting a period of stability before the next major trend emerges. Meanwhile, the recent market recovery kick-started after ETH retested the realized price of whale addresses, indicating that large market players are bolstering their holdings. 

XWIN Research Japan supports this theory, noting that Ethereum Treasury BitMine has boosted its market holdings to 3.63 million ETH. Additionally, a BlackRock client recently acquired tens of millions of dollars’ worth of ETH, further reinforcing the strength of current market demand. However, despite this robust market demand, ETH Spot ETF net outflows for November hit $1.42 billion, indicating there is significant selling pressure in the market.

Ethereum Market Outlook

At the time of writing, Ethereum trades at $3,003, reflecting a 0.22% loss in the past day. Despite its gains in the last week, the altcoin is still down by 22.34% over the last month, suggesting the majority of short-term holders are in losses.

XWIN Research Japan explains that although the overleveraged position has been cleared out with market whales now ramping up their holding, Ethereum remains in a “bottom-building phase”.  Therefore, investors should still anticipate a “choppy, sell-on-rally” price action in the short term. The analysts predict a major trend reversal with time as the current price area becomes increasingly attractive to investors for massive accumulation opportunities.