Grayscale: ETH's decline may be due to excessive long positions in perpetual futures, and leveraged traders in the Asian market led the liquidation

According to an analysis report recently released by Grayscale, one of the reasons for the relatively large drop in Ethereum prices appears to be the excessive long positions in perpetual futures. In May 2024, when the U.S. SEC approved the issuer's 19b-4 application for the U.S. spot Ethereum exchange-traded product (ETP), traders significantly increased their total perpetual futures positions, perhaps expecting further price increases after obtaining full approval from regulators; this approval occurred in July 2024, and the U.S. spot Ethereum ETP began trading shortly thereafter. In the recent decline, some long positions were liquidated, accelerating the price decline. On August 4, the price of Ethereum fell 7.6% in just three minutes, and the total liquidation of perpetual futures reached $340 million that day alone. Because the sell-off occurred during the U.S. overnight trading session and there was a large discount to the spot price of Binance and Coinbase, the liquidation seemed to be mainly led by leveraged traders in Asia.