TL;DR:
- Large holders reduced their positions by 160,000 ETH, valued at over $348 million over recent trading sessions.
- Ethereum balances deposited across centralized exchanges posted an inflow of 100,000 ETH (approximately $240 million).
- ETH traded down 1.37% over 24 hours to change hands at $2,320, touching an intraday low of $2,290.
Whales liquidated a combined 160,000 ETH, driving a substantial spike in selling pressure across the Ethereum market. This capital flight coincides with a breach of immediate technical supports and the technical postponement of the network’s upcoming testnet upgrade.
This Thursday, October 29, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization fell back into the $2,320 range. The pullback followed a rejection at the key resistance near $2,400 on October 28—a session that saw on-chain network transaction volume exceed $100 billion before sliding to an intraday low of $2,290. At the time of writing, Ethereum was trading around $2,327.
According to a technical report by Ali Martinez, whale activity accounts for a meaningful portion of the observed structural weakness. On-chain metrics reveal that these large wallets distributed 160,000 ETH, equating to more than $348 million in transfers directed to the open market over the past several days.
3/6 Whale holdings may help explain the weakness.
Over the past few days, large holders have reduced their positions by roughly 160,000 $ETH, worth more than $348 million.
That distribution could be contributing to the downward pressure on price. pic.twitter.com/1E5f7F8bGo
— Ali Charts (@alicharts) October 29, 2026
Alongside this massive distribution, exchange balance data tracked a net inflow of 100,000 ETH, injecting roughly $240 million in immediate sell-side liquidity. Market analysts note that moving funds onto centralized platforms typically expands circulating supply on order books, dampening retail absorption capacity.
The broader crypto drawdown also lined up with macroeconomic headwinds. The U.S. Federal Reserve decided to hold interest rates unchanged at its October meeting, spurring a risk-off tone across both equities and high-beta digital assets.
ETH Technical Outlook and Testnet Delays
On the daily candlestick timeframe, ETH breached the immediate support zone situated at $2,385. In Martinez’s technical assessment, price action broke down through a right-angled ascending broadening formation.
Projections outlined by the analyst indicate that, as long as price remains capped below the $2,385 threshold and exchange reserves stay elevated, the pattern targets an extended 14% decline toward the psychological $2,000 level.
The price slowdown further coincided with technical updates out of the core development team. The “Glamsterdam” upgrade slated for the Hoodi testnet, originally set to deploy on October 26, 2026, at 17:42:48 UTC (epoch 132,352), was officially postponed.
During the ACDE #248 core developer meeting, participants agreed to pause deployment to more thoroughly test how improvement proposal EIP-8037 interacts with existing mainnet smart contracts. The delay temporarily puts on hold the activation of the Amsterdam execution layer and Gloas consensus layer on the testbed, also pausing the planned gas limit increase to 200 million on Hoodi.
The Ethereum developer team stated that an updated deployment schedule for the Hoodi testnet will be released once core contract compatibility checks wrap up.
