Ethereum’s supply mechanics limited selling pressure, keeping losses smaller than typical Bitcoin corrections.
Bitcoin’s violent fall from around $107,000 on November 11 to lows near $81,000 on November 21 has shaken traders across the market.
However, new on-chain data shows that this was first and foremost a Bitcoin panic, not an Ethereum crash.
A tale of two liquidations
XWIN Research Japan analysis shows how the October-November correction split the top two. Indexed since October 1, Bitcoin fell to the 70s in late November, while Ethereum fell to the 60s.
Historically, a 30% pullback in BTC has often meant a 40% to 50% hit for ETH, but this time the gap remained unusually narrow, indicating that the latter held up better than usual even as fear spread.
The reason is in chain. Since the merger, an increasing proportion of ETH is locked in staking, while EIP-1559 continues to remove coins from circulation during peak periods. That means there are fewer tokens available to dump when the market panics.
By contrast, Bitcoin saw a clear selloff spike on Nov. 21, coinciding with reports of nearly $2 billion in positions wiped out in a single day as the asset briefly slid toward $81,000 before recovering above $84,000 and then regaining levels near $88,000 over the weekend.
Currently, BTC is trading around $86,000, down about 10% on the week, 19% in two weeks, and 23% on the month. For its part, ETH sits near $2,800, which is about 12% down for the week, 22% down in 14 days, and 29% down for the month; painful, but not the enormous damage of past cycles.
You may also be interested in:
Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s MVRV index, a key on-chain valuation indicator, has fallen from around 2.5 in early 2025 to around 1.5 in this sell-off, a zone that has often marked deep mid-cycle resets rather than trailing highs.
ETH Leverage Is A Time Bomb, But Supply Is On Your Side
Despite the seemingly positive news for the world’s second-largest digital asset, other market technicians have said that ETH’s calmer spot outlook hides a dangerous derivatives buildup.
According to CryptoOnchain, Ethereum’s estimated leverage ratio on Binance rose to a record high of 0.562, even as the price fell from around $4,200 to $2,800.
In other words, traders continued to accumulate leveraged long positions as the chart trended lower, leaving the market exposed to another wave of liquidations if the cryptocurrency falls another step.
Elsewhere, analysts are calling the current climate a “zebra market,” a term coined by XWIN Research to describe an environment defined by wild black-and-white price swings rather than a sustained bullish or bearish trend.
Under such conditions, on-chain data becomes a critical tool for separating signal from noise and, for now, frame this episode as a BTC-led dump in a choppy mid-cycle, not the beginning of an Ethereum breakout.
SECRET PARTNERSHIP BONUS for CryptoPotato readers: Use this link to sign up and unlock $1,500 in exclusive BingX Exchange rewards (limited time offer).
