Ethereum continues to experience significant downward pressure, currently trading around $2,800. This represents a 3.6% decline over the last 24 hours and a staggering 15.3% drop over the past week. The last time Ethereum dipped below the $3,000 threshold was in July 2025, coinciding with a wave of corporate firms implementing their Ethereum treasury strategies.
The situation has been compounded by substantial outflows from Ethereum spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs). On Thursday alone, $37.6 million exited these funds, with November’s total outflows exceeding $1.5 billion—marking the highest since their inception, according to analysis from SoSoValue.
Jim Hwang, COO of crypto investment firm Firinne Capital, notes the $3,000 mark is a significant psychological threshold for investors. “Investors remember these to base their heuristics around what their cost basis is, gains they want to lock in, or losses they don’t want to go below,” Hwang remarked. He views the $3,000 level as an informal report card on how well the industry is faring concerning legislative, regulatory, and institutional adoption.
Adding to the market’s woes is the residual impact from an October 10 liquidation event. Nick Forster, CEO and cofounder of crypto options platform Derive.xyz, explained that stricter risk limits imposed on institutions have led to a gradual unwinding of leveraged and spot positions in both Bitcoin and Ethereum following the liquidation incident.
Forster mentioned that this situation is further aggravated by digital asset treasuries (DATs), which are under a fiduciary duty to enhance shareholder value, leading them to sell off ETH to reduce their discount to net asset value (NAV). A notable instance is FG Nexus, the seventh-largest Ethereum treasury firm, which recently borrowed $10 million to sell 10,922 ETH worth approximately $32.6 million as part of its share buyback initiative.
FG Nexus’s chairman and CEO, Kyle Cerminara, stated, “We plan to continue buying back shares while our stock trades below NAV, which creates an increasingly asymptotic effect on our per-share valuation metrics as the number of shares outstanding declines and net asset value per share increases.” Data from Blockworks Research indicates that FG Nexus has a fully diluted minimum NAV (mNAV) of 0.72, suggesting that its shares are currently valued at less than its cryptocurrency holdings.
Following suit, ETHZilla, another Ethereum treasury firm, announced plans to use proceeds from a $40 million Ethereum sale to support share repurchases. Conversely, Justin Kenna, CEO of the Ethereum treasury firm GameSquare, expressed that ongoing network usage and adoption bolster their belief in Ethereum’s long-term viability. “Price will be volatile at times, but the stronger long-term signal for us is the underlying utility on Ethereum,” Kenna remarked, noting that GameSquare was able to fund its share buyback through yields from its crypto treasury.
Market forecasts reflect a bearish sentiment as market-implied probabilities derived from event contracts indicate a 70% chance that Ethereum could drop to $2,750 this year. Forster pointed out, however, that there has been notable put selling on Ethereum at the $3,000 strike price, indicating that some traders believe the worst may be over. “If $3,000 holds, I’m expecting a rally until the end of the year to $3,700,” he added.
