preferred on
Points of Focus
- Ether open interest hit $16.97 billion, the highest level since January.
- Binance ETH withdrawals reached their highest monthly average since 2023.
- Four oscillators now show downward signals despite a bullish MA stack.
Ether (ETH) is trading at $2,753.32, up 1.9% intraday, at the time of writing, pulling back after touching an intraday high of $2,804.42 earlier in the day.
The pullback lands as two separate forces build underneath the price: Leverage in ETH derivatives markets has reached its highest level since January, while a distinct set of onchain data points to genuine accumulation running in parallel.
Ether’s oscillators are flipping to downward signals despite a bullish structure
Every moving average (MA) tracked remains on an upward signal except the nine-day Hull average, which flipped to a downward signal at $2,782.91, slightly above the current spot price.
The oscillator picture has deteriorated further than two sessions ago: The Commodity Channel Index (CCI) has flipped to a downward signal at 211.74, joining Stochastic RSI Fast (96.41), Momentum (226.64), and Williams Percent Range (-12.03), four oscillators now flagging extension where two were flagged previously.
The relative strength index (RSI) sits at 69.71, below but close to the conventional 70 overbought threshold.
The moving average convergence/divergence (MACD) level remains the exception, still an upward signal at 97.37, meaning the broader trend indicator has not yet turned even as several faster-reacting oscillators have.
Ethereum open interest hits an eight-month high as leverage rebuilds
Ether’s total open interest has reached $16.97 billion, its highest level since January, according to Santiment.
🚨 Rising Open Interest Shows Traders Are Chasing Momentum!
📈 Leverage is rebuilding alongside price. Sanbase shows there’s currently $25.84B in $BTC open interest, $16.97B in $ETH, and $2.97B in $SOL as traders are aggressively pumping up derivatives numbers. Market-wide open… pic.twitter.com/zF2h7L5tXJ
— Santiment Intelligence (@SantimentData) September 22, 2026
Market-wide crypto open interest rose 7.6% during the recent rally, driven in part by a wave of short liquidations, nearly $648 million market-wide and more than $120 million in ETH alone, that got replaced by fresh positions rather than reducing total leverage outstanding.
Santiment’s thesis is that rising price alongside rising open interest signals expanding participation and leverage, not a directional signal on its own. If spot buying continues, that leverage can keep feeding the move higher; if price stalls while positioning keeps building, the same open interest becomes fuel for a sharper liquidation event in the other direction.
Ether’s Binance withdrawals and treasury holdings point to accumulation
A separate data set suggests some of this move is driven by genuine accumulation, not leveraged speculation alone.
🗞️ Ethereum's silent accumulation Hits a 3-Year High
In just 3 months, ethereum:native has gone from $1 510 to $2 650, a gain of more than 75%.
This move structurally breaks the prevailing trend by clearing April's high.
Compared to Bitcoin, which has yet to establish itself… pic.twitter.com/ECQTKfkJdl
— Darkfost (@Darkfost_Coc) September 21, 2026
Monthly average ETH withdrawal transactions from Binance have surpassed 90,000, the highest level since 2023 and double the level at the start of the year, per CryptoQuant data. Withdrawals to private custody at this scale generally signal medium- to long-term holding rather than active trading.
That trend sits alongside a separate accumulation signal: Total ETH held across corporate and digital-asset-treasury balance sheets stands at 7,997,294 ETH, roughly 6.5% of circulating supply, according to CoinGecko data.
Ether’s three-month move, from $1,510 to current levels, a gain of more than 75%, has also cleared its April high on a structural basis, a distinction from Bitcoin (BTC), which has not yet durably reclaimed its May high over the same period.
What resolves the tension in Ether’s leverage and accumulation data
The two forces point in different directions if the rally stalls. Leverage without continued price appreciation becomes liquidation risk, concentrated and fast-moving.
Accumulation into private custody represents supply already removed from circulating exchange balances regardless of what price does next, a slower-moving but more durable form of support.
Today’s pullback from $2,804.42 is a real test of which force is currently doing more work, and the next few sessions of open interest and exchange-flow data should answer that better than a single day’s price action can.
Share
Most read articles
