Ethereum has plunged below $1,500 for the first time in over a year, signaling renewed volatility in the crypto market. In the past 24 hours alone, the price of ETH dropped by approximately 20%, settling around $1,476 after peaking at $1,799 earlier in the day. This steep decline appears to be part of a broader selloff driven by macroeconomic pressures, particularly the recently announced tariffs by Donald Trump, which have rattled investor confidence across risk assets.
Liquidations have swept through the Ethereum market, with data from Coinglass revealing that more than $400 million in ETH positions have been wiped out. Long trades have borne the brunt, losing close to $341 million. As traders rushed to exit their positions, open interest in Ethereum futures saw a sharp 15% decrease, reflecting the rapid shift in market sentiment.
One particularly dramatic example of the downturn’s impact involved a major whale who suffered a staggering loss. According to a post by Lookonchain on April 7, this investor lost 67,570 ETH—worth over $100 million—after taking out a large loan backed by Ethereum on the decentralized finance platform Sky, formerly known as Maker. As the price of ETH dropped, the system automatically liquidated the collateral to cover the loan, leading to a massive financial blow.
The recent decline is only the latest chapter in what has been a difficult stretch for Ethereum. The network ended the first quarter of 2025 down 45%, shedding approximately $170 billion in market value. That performance marks its third-worst quarterly result since 2016. Despite maintaining dominance in decentralized exchange trading volume during March, Ethereum’s fee revenue dropped drastically—from $142 million in January to just $21 million in March, based on DefiLlama data.
Part of the fee reduction can be traced to the Dencun upgrade, implemented in March 2024 via EIP-1559, which successfully lowered transaction costs. However, a side effect of this improvement was Ethereum becoming inflationary again. A key deflationary metric—the ETH burn rate—has plummeted to its lowest level since August 2021, raising concerns about long-term supply dynamics.
Investor sentiment, once overwhelmingly bullish, has grown more cautious. In March, analysts from Standard Chartered revised their year-end ETH price forecast from $10,000 to $4,000, citing intensifying competition from layer-2 scaling solutions. These rollups are increasingly drawing users away from the Ethereum mainnet by offering faster speeds and significantly lower fees.
Looking ahead, the anticipated Pectra upgrade is expected to enhance Ethereum’s core infrastructure. Nevertheless, even with these technical improvements, the network remains vulnerable to broader economic headwinds. As uncertainty persists, Ethereum’s path forward may depend as much on global policy shifts as on protocol upgrades.
By Alejandro Silva Ramírez, Crypto Analyst & Columnist