Maelstrom CIO Arthur Hayes has sold his altcoin holdings, starting with Ethereum. He dumped 6,400 ETH worth $15.2M. The firm also offloaded $2.76M of Ethena [ENA], $2.24M of Uniswap [UNI], EtherFi [ETHFI], Aerodrome [AERO], and Zama.
In total, Hayes sold $22.28M worth of altcoins. Defending his move, the crypto investor said,
I dumped it all. The Maelstrom directional book took profits on ETH, ENA, UNI, and other shitcoins. I think we gotta go down to go up. It looks a bit dicey out there in macro and geopolitical land.
Even US equity markets closed lower on Friday. BTC also dropped to $80K following speculation that the U.S. was moving its personnel out of the Middle East, suggesting a potential renewed tension with Iran.
But Ethereum’s pressure is coming from multiple fronts.
Ethereum is under bearish pressure
First, ETH has been the most sold crypto asset by ETF investors in October. So far, the products have seen $1.1B in monthly outflows, nearly 3x more than BTC, which saw $313M in outflows.
This was the second-largest monthly outflow for the U.S. spot ETH ETF since its debut. The record monthly sell-off of $1.42B happened last November. With another week left before October comes to an end, the pending macro and geopolitical fears may trigger more outflows.
Ethereum OGs or early investors, some who bought ETH while it was below $1, have been cashing out in droves too. Some of this cohort sold over $8M worth of ETH in the past 48 hours.
Since last June, Bitmine has been acquiring ETH for its treasury purposes. It has now accumulated 6.053M ETH, or 99% of its 5% ETH supply target. That means it could stop buying ETH at any time, blocking another demand channel that has sustained the altcoin for over a year.
Currently, an average of 20K ETH is added to the supply every week. Without Bitmine and the ETF continued sell-off, this will become another pressure factor.
Perhaps one of the positive catalysts is the record staking demand for ETH. Unfortunately, this also means new issuance rewards to stakers, which adds to the supply in the first place.
Can Ethereum bulls defend $2,300?
Taken together, if the macro and geopolitical backdrop does not improve, further downside risk could be likely. If so, losing $2,364 could drag to $2,200 or $2,100.
The $2300-$2400 has been a key support zone since September and a key hurdle in H1 2026. However, ETH has dropped by 15% from the recent high of $2,800. Breaking below $2,300 would reinforce the $2400 level as another hurdle for bulls.
Final Summary
- Hayes offloaded over $22M of altcoins, including $15M in ETH holdings.
- ETF investors sold +$1 billion of ETH in October, more than any other crypto asset.
