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Ether (ETH) is trading at $1,996.74 on May 29, down 6.4% in the last seven days and dropping below the $2,000 psychological threshold for the first time since February 2026, according to CoinGecko data.
The break came on the same day that David Hoffman, co-founder of Bankless, confirmed he had sold his entire ETH position. This public exit carries particular weight, given Hoffman’s history of declaring 99% of his net worth was held in ETH.
— David Hoffman (@TrustlessState) May 26, 2026
The same session saw whale wallets holding 100,000 ETH or more reach a nine-week high in accumulation, per Santiment data. The divergence between high-profile retail exit and large-wallet accumulation is the defining tension in ETH’s current market structure.
Hoffman’s exit, confirmed by his own post, is analytically significant not for its size but for its symbolism. Hoffman built Bankless on the thesis that ETH was money, that holding it was the correct long-term position, and that the Ethereum ecosystem was structurally undervalued relative to its utility. His exit signals that one of ETH’s most prominent long-term advocates has revised that conviction at current prices.
🐳 Wallets with at least 100K Ethereum now collectively hold 17.41M $ETH. This is the most they have held in 9 weeks. This also translates to 22.03% of the entire supply, a 10-week high.
🧐 Check in on how the elite 100k+ Ethereum wallets are behaving on a day-to-day basis here!… pic.twitter.com/FA7nnGBWy3
— Santiment Intelligence (@SantimentData) May 28, 2026
At the same time, Santiment data shows wallets holding at least 100,000 ETH collectively hold 17.41 million ETH as of May 28, the highest in nine weeks. That cohort now controls 22.03% of the entire ETH supply, a 10-week high.
The Santiment chart, covering November 2025 to May 2026, shows this accumulation began accelerating in late April as the price declined from $2,400, confirming the whale cohort has been systematically buying into the retail-driven selling. “This is the most they have held in 9 weeks,” Santiment noted. “This also translates to 22.03% of the entire supply, a 10-week high.”
The $1,992 session low and $1,997 close are the prices at which that handoff is occurring.
Tom Lee identified ETH’s inverse correlation with oil at -0.40, a record in Bloomberg data dating back to April 2016. His framework: As West Texas Intermediate (WTI) rose to $107.73 from $80 over six weeks, ETH fell to $2,114 from $2,400. The corollary: Oil reversing equals ETH recovering.
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If one is wondering why Ethereum $ETH has been under selling pressure:– to me, rising oil prices is the biggest headwind
– ETH inverse correlation to oil is the highest ever pic.twitter.com/G5Uw0wbtJP— Thomas (Tom) Lee (not drummer) FundstratDirect.com (@fundstrat) May 18, 2026
Brent crude traded at $92-$94 on May 29, per Yahoo Finance, down from the $107 peak. WTI has declined in parallel. The Hormuz disruption premium that drove oil to $107 has partially unwound as ceasefire extension talks progressed. Lee’s framework does not require a full oil reversal to generate an ETH recovery signal. A sustained move below $95 is sufficient to break the six-week inverse correlation pattern he identified.
At $1,997, ETH sits 60% below its August 2025 all-time high (ATH) of about $4,950. The February 2026 trough of $1,750 is 11.4% below the current price. The Bankless capitulation, the whale accumulation high, and the oil reversal signal have all arrived at the same price level simultaneously.
Charts and technical data from TradingView show the full cycle from December 2024 through May 2026. The $2,000 dotted support held every test from February through late May. The May 29 close below it is the first since the February 2026 trough.
Every exponential moving average (EMA) and simple moving average (SMA) on the indicator panel signals sell. EMA10 at $2,071, SMA10 at $2,074, EMA20 at $2,129, SMA20 at $2,152, EMA30 at $2,162, SMA30 at $2,207, EMA50 at $2,192, SMA50 at $2,252, EMA100 at $2,276, SMA100 at $2,158, EMA200 at $2,509, SMA200 at $2,512. The Hull moving average (MA) at $1,996.91, one cent above the close, also signals sell, bringing the total to 12 consecutive sell signals across the full MA stack.
The average directional index (ADX) at 33.25 is the most analytically significant reading. Above 30, ADX confirms the trend is strong enough to follow rather than fade. This is the highest ADX reading since the February 2026 decline. The sell signal has directional conviction.
The relative strength index (RSI) at 30.13 has reached the traditional oversold threshold of 30 for the first time since February 2026. At the February trough, RSI reached 28-29 before the recovery to $2,400 followed. Stochastic %K at 9.40 is deeply oversold. Commodity channel index (CCI) at -116.61 and Momentum at -113.72 both signal a buy from extreme levels. Moving average convergence/divergence (MACD) at -66.97 remains a sell signal. Williams Percent Range at -88.19 is neutral. Stochastic RSI Fast at 1.10 is approaching a buy crossover from a multi-month low.
The February 2026 parallel is precise. RSI at 30, Stochastic at 9, CCI and Momentum both triggering buy signals from extreme levels, and ADX confirming the trend all occurred within a three-session window of the February bottom. The recovery to $2,400 from $1,750 followed within six weeks.
The current setup differs in one dimension: ADX at 33.25 in February was lower than its current reading. A stronger trend requires a more definitive exhaustion signal before reversing. The RSI has reached 30. It has not closed below it. A close below $1,992 without the RSI recovering above 30 would extend the decline toward the $1,950-$1,750 structural zone.
The Bitmine Russell 1000 preliminary list update arrived today per the FTSE Russell schedule. Glamsterdam devnets continue running with no mainnet activation date confirmed. Oil at $92-$94 is 14% below its $107 peak. Spot ETH exchange-traded fund flows on May 29 will confirm whether the institutional outflow trend that began on May 18 has paused or continued at the $2,000 support test.
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