Ethereum balances held on cryptocurrency exchanges dropped 15% between June 2 and August 18, with roughly 1.15 million ETH leaving exchanges over the eleven-week period, according to on-chain analytics firm Santiment.

Bitcoin exchange balances moved in the opposite direction during the same period, rising about 1.8%. The divergence highlights contrasting exchange-supply trends for the two largest digital assets, even as ETH staged a price recovery that analysts say now faces a key test at the $2,500 resistance level. The shift came as volatile exchange flows accompanied the rebound, with ETH climbing from the $1,900 area toward the $2,300 region. Exchange balances are a closely watched on-chain metric because coins held on centralized platforms are the portion of supply readily available for trading, while ETH moved to self-custody wallets or into staking is generally viewed as less immediately available.

Ethereum Exchange Supply Keeps Falling

Santiment reported that ETH held on exchanges declined from approximately 7.70 million coins to 6.54 million coins. That represents roughly 1.15 million ETH leaving exchanges over eleven weeks.

Bitcoin behaved differently. From July 28 to August 18, BTC exchange balances increased about 1.8%, or roughly 23,000 coins, while ETH exchange balances declined about 2.2% over that identical period. Notably, ETH closed lower on August 16, 17 and 18.

Santiment linked the declining ETH exchange supply to near-record staking levels and corporate treasury purchases. BitMine alone holds close to 5% of ETH supply, with most of its holdings staked. Staking, which Ethereum adopted network-wide with its September 2022 transition to proof-of-stake, locks ETH in validator contracts that earn rewards and keeps those coins off centralized platforms. BitMine's buying, meanwhile, follows the corporate treasury playbook that MicroStrategy popularized with Bitcoin, in which publicly listed companies accumulate a digital asset as a treasury reserve. The drawdown also comes against a broader, multi-year decline in coins held on centralized exchanges that analysts have tracked since the November 2022 collapse of FTX heightened attention to custody risk on trading platforms.

Analysts Track ETH's Next Resistance

Analyst Ted Pillows said ETH produced a large daily candle during the recent price move and identified $2,500 as the next resistance level for Ethereum. Reclaiming $2,500, Pillows added, would remove the prospect of ETH falling to a new bottom.

Michael van de Poppe took a more measured view, saying the rally may not continue without pauses. Van de Poppe said ETH had moved toward 0.033 BTC after sweeping that level, and noted that retracements could provide potential buying areas. The 0.033 level refers to the ETH/BTC trading pair, a widely used gauge of Ethereum's relative strength against Bitcoin.

Price data shows ETH trading between roughly $1,870 and $1,950 from August 8 through August 18, before moving sharply higher toward $2,300 to $2,320.

Exchange Flows Turn Volatile

Exchange flows turned volatile alongside the recovery. On August 19, ETH exchange netflows recorded spikes near $75 million and $55 million — inflows that increased the amount of ETH moving onto spot exchanges. A subsequent outflow reached roughly $55 million around August 20, and smaller inflows between $20 million and $35 million also appeared during the period. Netflow measures the gap between deposits to and withdrawals from exchanges, and large swings in either direction are monitored for what they signal about changing trading behavior, though flows alone do not determine price direction.

ETH held near $2,200 to $2,300 during these flow changes, and the reported exchange outflow followed the earlier large inflow spikes.

According to Santiment, ETH continues moving away from exchanges while Bitcoin exchange balances move higher. The two assets therefore recorded opposite exchange-balance trends across the reported periods. The markers analysts say they are watching next are whether ETH outflows resume at the scale recorded earlier in the eleven-week stretch and how price behaves around the $2,500 level Pillows identified.

Source: Crypto Front News