Market context
Ethereum has been the underperformer of this cycle's institutional leg, and Friday's tape reflected that. ETH printed $2,006 in European hours, down roughly 6% on the week and 57% from its August 2025 highs near $4,700, according to figures cited by Standard Chartered's Geoff Kendrick in a Walter Bloomberg note circulated on X. The ETH/BTC ratio has shed another 37% over the same stretch, sliding into the 0.
75 Fibonacci retracement zone that traders on the desk have been flagging as the line of last defense. The macro frame matters here. Bitcoin is hovering in the $77,000-$78,000 band, per crypto.
news, which means ETH is not getting a tailwind from a runaway BTC bid. It is being asked to hold $2,000 on its own merits, into a $7. 5 billion monthly options expiry that BeInCrypto flagged for today with max pain levels sitting above current spot.
That combination, a heavy expiry plus a stretched ratio plus a coin already underwater, is what makes this session a hinge rather than a continuation.
Technical setup
The structure on ETH is ugly but not yet broken. The $2,000 round number is the immediate floor. Below it, CryptoPotato's analyst flagged $1,800 as the next horizontal shelf, with U.
Today pointing to a weekly close defense at $1,850 as the line that decides whether bears get a runway down to $1,070. That target sounds extreme, but it is the symmetric measured move from the current breakdown structure and worth respecting as a tail. On the ETH/BTC chart, the partner at sizeprop known as Scient described a textbook bearish retest of the daily market structure shift, a rotation lower to sweep February liquidity, and a clean fill of the fair value gap.