Market context
Ethereum opened June by losing the level traders had been defending all of May. The five-day range between $1,965 and $2,035 broke down on Tuesday, ETH printed $1,836, and CoinDesk reported $1.6 billion in bullish crypto bets wiped across ETH, SOL and DOGE in the same session. The single largest unwind was a $59.67 million BTC-USDT long on HTX, but ETH-specific liquidations alone hit $91 million per CoinGlass - the second-largest contribution behind BTC's $445 million.
The disproportionate hit to bitcoin matters here. BTC fell nearly 5% in 24 hours to $69,400 after what NewsBTC characterised as a rare sale from Strategy, the largest treasury holder. ETH dropped 0.7% in the same window. That relative outperformance is a tell - this leg lower is being led by bitcoin's order book, not ethereum's. Which means the catalyst that ends it may also not be ETH-specific.
The broader tape is more constructive than the candle suggests. Total crypto market cap held $2.32 trillion at press time. Charles Schwab confirmed on Tuesday a mid-2027 target to roll out spot trading, transfer and custody to financial advisors across Schwab Advisor Services, a channel holding roughly $5.31 trillion in client assets. The retail Schwab Crypto product, live since April, already offers BTC and ETH at a 75 basis point fee with Paxos handling sub-custody. The advisor tier would put ETH inside the workflows of registered investment advisors, not just exchange-traded wrappers. That is the structural bid the bear case has to fight.