Ethereum falls below a critical level
The last time ethereum was below $3,000 was in July 2025, after a number of corporate firms had begun to roll out their ethereum treasury strategies.
Ethereum’s bleeding continues, as the cryptocurrency is trading around $2,800, a 3.6% decline in the last 24 hours and a 15.3% drop in the past seven days.
Prior to this week, the last time ethereum broke below $3,000 was in July 2025, after a number of corporate firms had begun to roll out their ethereum treasury strategies.
Flows of ethereum spot ETFs have not helped with the cryptocurrency’s price action. On Thursday, $37.6 million exited the funds, bringing November’s total outflows to more than $1.5 billion so far, the most since launch, per SoSoValue.
The $3,000 mark as a round number is a critical level, Jim Hwang, COO of crypto investment firm Firinne Capital, says. “Investors remember these to base their heuristics around what their cost basis is, gains they want to lock in, or losses they don’t want to go below,” Hwang told Sherwood News.
“The $3,000 level for ETH is a bit of a report card by investors assessing the progress that the industry has made on the legislative, regulatory, and institutional adoption fronts,” he added.
Meanwhile, the crypto market is still seeing substantial overhang from the October 10 liquidation event, according to Nick Forster, CEO and cofounder of crypto options platform Derive.xyz.
“My view is that institutions broadly have had stricter risk limits imposed which has caused gradual unwinding of leverage and spot positions in BTC and ETH post 10/10,” Forster said to Sherwood.
Treasury firms repurchasing their own shares
“This move is exacerbated by forced sellers in the form of DATs [digital asset treasuries], who have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value — selling ETH to reduce their discount to NAV,” Forster said.
For example, FG Nexus, the seventh-largest ethereum treasury firm, announced on Thursday that it borrowed $10 million and sold 10,922 ETH worth $32.6 million to accelerate its share buyback program.
Kyle Cerminara, chairman and CEO of FG Nexus, said in a press release, “We plan to continue buying back shares while our stock trades below NAV, which creates increasingly asymptotic effect on our per-share valuation metrics as the number of shares outstanding declines and net asset value per share increases.”
FG Nexus has a fully diluted mNAV of 0.72, which means the firm’s shares, including ones that may be issued via warrants, stock options, or convertible debt, are worth less than its crypto holdings, data from Blockworks Research shows.
FG Nexus’ announcement follows ETHZilla, another ethereum treasury firm, saying in October that it plans to use proceeds from its $40 million ethereum sale for share repurchases.
Meanwhile, Justin Kenna, CEO of ethereum treasury firm GameSquare, said the network’s usage and ongoing adoption reinforces its conviction in ethereum. “Price will be volatile at times, but the stronger long-term signal for us is the underlying utility on ethereum,” Kenna told Sherwood.
Per Kenna, GameSquare was able to fund its share repurchase, which was also announced on Thursday, through yield from its crypto treasury.
Price predictions
Market-implied probabilities derived from event contracts show that investors have given a 70% chance the token falls as low at $2,750 this year, highlighting their bearish view on ethereum’s price trajectory.
(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)
“At Derive, we’re seeing significant ETH put selling at the 3k strike out to end of year, suggesting traders think the worst is through. If 3k holds, I’m expecting a rally until EOY to 3.7k,” Forster said.
