A warning has emerged that Ethereum could slip below $2,000 after failing at the $2,400 resistance level.
On May 8, Cointelegraph reported that alongside the price correction, network activity, staking fund flows and U.S.-linked selling indicators all deteriorated at the same time.
After stalling at $2,400 resistance, Ethereum fell more than 5.6 percent to as low as $2,275. Nansen data showed weekly average transactions fell 10 percent to 4.79 million, and active addresses dropped 8 percent to 2.5 million. Network fees also declined about 27 percent, pushing on-chain revenue over the past 7 days down 47 percent.
DefiLlama data showed weekly trading volume on Ethereum-based decentralised exchanges stood at $1.64 billion on May 8, down 46 percent from 3 weeks earlier. Total value locked also fell to $124.7 billion, dropping to around May 2025 levels.
Moves to exit staking also grew. The amount waiting to be unstaked surged about 72,000 percent in 2 weeks to 539,985 ETH on May 2. As of May 8, more than 202,000 ETH was in the withdrawal queue, with an estimated wait time of about 3 days.
A string of recent DeFi hacks also weighed on investor sentiment. In April 2026, DeFi platforms recorded $625 million in losses from 30 attacks, and the KelpDAO bridge hack accounted for $292 million. More than $15 billion in deposits then flowed out of the Aave platform. Analyst Pete said on X that the withdrawal queue grew in 2 weeks from about 700 ETH to about 500,000 ETH.
Still, demand to enter staking had not been completely broken. The staking entry queue stood at 3.6 million ETH, about 7 times the withdrawal amount. Total staked reached 38.6 million ETH, or 31.72 percent of total supply, and the waiting period for new entry was 45 days.
U.S.-driven selling pressure also continued. The Coinbase premium index has remained negative since April 27. U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs posted net outflows of $103 million on May 7, snapping a 4-day run of net inflows. That was the biggest outflow since mid-March. Global Ethereum investment products also saw $81.6 million leave last week.
Derivatives markets also showed selling dominance. Binance’s ETH taker buy volume recently fell to negative $25 million. CryptoQuant analyst Boris said this indicated a surge in aggressive market sell orders.
Charts also show lingering pressure. The daily ETH/USD chart fell below $2,300 and broke below the lower support line of a rising wedge pattern. The market is focusing on holding the $2,150 to $2,200 zone, where the 100-day simple moving average and the 50-week simple moving average sit. If both that zone and the $2,000 level break, it could fall to $1,830, the outlet reported.
