Despite briefly climbing over the weekend, Ethereum couldn’t keep up its momentum above $2,600. The altcoin dropped to $2,400 before staging another recovery and returning to $2,600.

New data now point to the possibility of a short-term pullback before a potential breakout materializes.

Cooling Period Before Breakout

Ethereum’s market is showing signs of overheating as it nears the $2.5K resistance level. There has been a surge in trading volume, which indicates intensified activity.

In fact, according to CryptoQuant’s latest report, the sharp uptick is attributed to profit-taking and the presence of resting supply at this key psychological level. As Ethereum enters an overheated state, analysts anticipate a short-term correction that could allow the market to cool before potential upside resumes.

“Consequently, Ethereum is expected to continue its consolidation phase until fresh demand emerges to drive a breakout above this resistance range in the mid-term.”

While short-term market signals suggest a cooling phase, long-term holders continue to accumulate the altcoin.

Long-Term Conviction

Ethereum’s presence on centralized exchanges has fallen to its lowest point in over a decade, driven by growing accumulation from institutional investors and large holders. As of May 19, Santiment reported that only 4.9% of the total ETH supply is held on trading venues, which represents a historic low. Over the past five years, 15.3 million ETH have been pulled from these platforms.

Meanwhile, CryptoRank.io revealed that more than 1 million ETH exited exchanges in the last month alone. This trend suggests that users are leaning toward holding ETH long-term rather than trading it. On-chain data confirms this behavior as it shows whales – wallets with over 10,000 ETH – have accumulated 450,000 coins since late April. By May 10, they collectively held 40.75 million ETH, the highest level since March.

Ethereum-linked investment products also saw a much-needed respite over the past week, recording inflows of $205 million during the period, amidst a renewed investor confidence following the Pectra upgrade. This brought its year-to-date total to $575 million.

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