Even though Ether (ETH) reached a $4,870 all-time loftier on Nov. ten, bulls have little reason to celebrate. The 290% gains year-to-engagement take been overshadowed by Dec.'south 18% price drop. Nonetheless, Ethereum's network value locked in smart contracts (TVL) increased nine-fold to $155 billion.

Looking at the by couple of months' price operation chart doesn't really tell the whole story, and Ether's current $450 billion market capitalization makes it ane of the world's top xx tradable assets, right backside the two-century-old Johnson & Johnson conglomerate.

Ether/USD cost at FTX. Source: TradingView

2021 should be remembered by the decentralized exchanges' sheer growth, whose daily volume reached $3 billion, a 340% growth versus the concluding quarter of 2022. Still, crypto traders are notoriously short-sighted, accentuating the impact of the ongoing downtrend channel.

Derivatives markets practise non reflect panic selling

To understand whether bearishness has been instilled, i must clarify the futures' funding charge per unit. Perpetual contracts, also known as inverse swaps, have an embedded charge per unit unremarkably charged every eight hours. Those measures are established to avoid exchange take a chance imbalances. A positive funding charge per unit indicates that longs (buyers) demand more than leverage.

All the same, the reverse situation occurs when shorts (sellers) require boosted leverage, and this causes the funding rate to turn negative.

Ether perpetual futures 8-hour funding charge per unit. Source: Coinglass.com

Equally depicted above, the eight-hour fee has been ranging near zero in December, indicating a counterbalanced leverage demand from buyers and sellers. Had there been some panic moments, it would have been reflected on such derivatives indicators.

Height traders are increasing their bullish bets

Substitution-provided data highlights traders' long-to-brusque net positioning. By analyzing every client's position on the spot, perpetual and futures contracts, one tin better understand whether professional traders are leaning bullish or surly.

There are occasional discrepancies in the methodologies betwixt different exchanges, so viewers should monitor changes instead of absolute figures.

Exchanges top traders Bitcoin long-to-short ratio. Source: Coinglass

Despite Ether's 9% correction since Dec. 24, top traders on Binance, Huobi and OKEx take increased their leverage longs. To be more than precise, Binance was the just exchange facing a modest reduction in the top traders' long-to-short ratio. The figure moved from 0.98 to 0.92. Withal, this impact was more than compensated by OKEx traders increasing their bullish bets from 1.67 to 3.20 in one week.

Currently, there is inappreciably a sense of bearishness nowadays in the market. According to the data, pro traders are ownership the dip while retail investors' internet demand for shorts (sell) inappreciably changed throughout the past calendar month. Of course, none of that tin can predict whenever Ether volition flip the current descending channel, but one might infer that there's piffling involvement in betting on the downside from here.

The views and opinions expressed hither are solely those of the author and exercise non necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves gamble. You lot should conduct your own research when making a decision.