On November 21, 2025, Ethereum fell to its lowest point in nine months, at $2,800, as the cryptocurrency market bled to the tune of more than half a trillion in value, as the world trade tensions increase and the Federal Reserve rate cuts are seemingly radical. Its second biggest digital asset in terms of market capitalisation dropped 7.4% in the past 24 hours, following the larger sell-off in Bitcoin and increasing losses in DeFi and Layer-2 worlds.

The volume of ETH trading has increased by 45%, and on-chain records show that there was a liquidation frenzy of up to $450 million, mostly due to over-leverage in perpetual futures. It is the largest one-day drop in Ethereum since the March 2025 regulatory scare, and Ethereum has lost 35% of its value since the September high of more than 4,300.

The trigger to the current rout can be linked to fresh U.S.-China tariff wrangles that have embittered risk appetite in all asset markets. Etherem, traditionally a “high-growth bet on decentralised innovation, has distanced itself and seems to share characteristics of a risky tech stock in this setting.

The levels of support at 2,900 and 2,750 only lasted briefly before being overcome by selling pressure on the part of the mid-term holders that had purchased the ETF during the summer frenzy; selling off 120,000 ETF in the last week alone. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index of ETH, meanwhile, plummeted to 12, the lowest since early 2024, which is an indication of capitulation by the retail investor.

Spot ETF Exodus: $261 Million Flees Ethereum Funds in November’s Darkest Week

This bleeding has been worst among the U.S.-listed Ethereum exchange-traded funds, where the outflows increased to $261 million in the last seven days, topping off a monthly outflow of 1.2 billion. The iShares Ethereum Trust of BlackRock alone exited by more than $74 million on day one, after having deposited 200 million dollars to Coinbase Prime, leading markets to interpret it as pre-selling the position.

This is the opposite of the $500 million flows that had forced ETH up to August to $4,900 as institutional investors such as pension funds and hedge desks withdrew in the wake of recent readings of persistent U.S. inflation.

To make it worse, derivatives leverage on sites, such as Binance and OKX, topped the record of the highest leverage of 28x, pre-empting mass liquidations which have erased all of the ETH longs on the night. Analysts explain this by the unwind of a so-called crowded trade in which optimism about Ethereum upgrades to its scalability was in conflict with macro realities.

The 50-day moving average has now taken points below the 200-day, thus creating a bearish so-called death cross, which has not been seen since the 2024 decline, indicating the possibility of further weakness to 2500. On-chain data is not encouraging: active addresses have decreased by 22% per week, and gas fee, which is generally an indicator of network activity, are down to under 12 USD per transaction, the lowest in Q1 2025.

Fusaka Upgrade Looms: A December Lifeline or a Mere Distraction in the ETH Bear Market?

With Ethereum in a state of short-term crisis, the Fusaka network upgrade is expected, which will be activated on December 3, 2025, with epoch 411,392. The most ambitious Hard fork since the 2022 Merge, this one adds 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) to make Ethereum massive in terms of scalability and resiliency.

Its core is PeerDAS (Peer Data Availability Sampling), which increases the capacity of data blobs eightfold (six to 48 per block) that has potentially reducing Layer-2 fees by 95% and increasing transaction throughput to 12,000 TPS, across solutions such as Arbitrum and Optimism. Other options are gas limit caps to prevent spam attacks and block size limits of 10 MB, which improve node efficiency without loss of decentralisation.

In July, developers completed Fusaka in the mainnet target after a series of devnet and testnet testing in July through October, and launched it around the Devconnect Buenos Aires conference (November 17-22). The next parameter will be Blob Parameter Only (BPO) forks on the 9th of December, which will enable the possibility of increasing throughput in an iterative fashion, without the major overhauls.

Its advocates applaud it as an engine of profits to the Ethereum ecosystem, which can make DeFi operations cheaper, as well as tokenised real-world assets that may attract hundreds of billions of new funds by the middle of 2026. However, critics advise against the dangers of being executed: coordination bugs or synchronisation failures would temporarily disrupt the network, as with the glitches of upgrades in the past.

As the ETH price is in a downturn, the success of Fusaka might be in the ability to show actual fee reduction since the current L2 charges are at the level of $0.15, yet after an upgrade, the estimates drop under 0.01, which will trigger migration out of competitors such as Solana.

Whale Accumulation Amidst Chaos: 1.23B ETH Stash Indicates Bottom Fishing

Counterintuitively, on-chain sleuths identify a curious whale that can be referred to as the #66kETHBorrow Whale due to its aggressive approach to loaning money on Aave. This organisation purchased an additional 7,837 ETH worth $21.9 million today, which added to its possession 440,558 ETH worth 1.23 billion.

Borrowing 602.6 million stablecoins to fund the buys, the whale pattern of active accumulation during dips has gained 30,366 ETH in recent days (or 115 million) to a war chestatively large at 940 million. This kind of action resembles historical lows, such as the 2024 whale attacks that were followed by a 150% recovery.

This resistance is counter to the general tone: the Relative Strength Index (RSI) of ETH is at 32, which is squarely oversold, and funding rates became neutral, which is a possible long squeeze.

Footprints by institutions make the story even more interesting – BitMine, managed by Fundstrat’s Tom Lee, is growing its hold of 19,500 ETH in November, making it one of the largest accumulators in the ETF turbulence. This flow implies that the prevailing $2,800 trough is perceived by smart money to be a smart entry point, and it is speculating that Fusaka will have catalysts to push ETH to 3,500 by the end of the year.

Price Outlook Polarised: Will the Surge or Plunge to $2,200? Experts Clash

The future of Ethereum is expected to take a left or right turn towards November. Cryptopolitan and CoinDCX bullish models predict an 8-10% recovery to $3,8503,900 by the end of the month due to whale purchases and Fusaka hype, with the target extending to $4,500 in December in case of ETF inflows.

This is supported by historical gains of November, with an average of 6.93 million and 1.2 million daily active users by Layer-2 adoption metrics. VanEck analysts highlight deflationary dynamics after Dencu, with the burn rate of ETH increasing 15% every quarter, which can constrain supply to 120 million coins.

Bearish voices, however, predict greater corrections. According to the Elliott Wave patterns that pointed to a stall of a bullish impulse, CoinCodex and LiteFinance have a slide to $2,500 once the $2,750 support is breached.

The agony would be increased to $2,200 by macro drags, such as the revision of Standard Chartered (to $4,000) of its $10,000 target (revised to $4,000) because of L2 value leakage. Manipulations are used to increase risks through leverage extremes, and ETH could be liquidated to a point of lower than $85,000 on the drag of Bitcoin, which could cause liquidations of up to 74 million daily.

Ethereum: The Bifurcated Fate of the Ecosystem Takes the Form of DeFi Reels, L2S Shine

The sell-off has spread unevenly in the realm of Ethereum. The total value locked (TVL) in defi declined by 12 per cent to reach $120 billion, with projects such as Uniswap and Aave recording 8-10 per cent in token declines as not as many people borrowed.

On the other hand, Layer-2s held their own: Arbitrum and Base volumes increased by 5% during the mayhem, a fact that highlights their position as fee havens in the future before Fusaka. The number of Ethereum transfers of stablecoins reached 2.5 million per day as more investors pour into yield-generating products such as staked ETH, which currently yields 4.2% APR.

Regulatory pale lights: The 25% drop in SEC enforcement has greenlighted Ethereum-based tokenised funds, and State Street, PayPal are extending pilots. However, quantum computing whispers reminiscent of Vitalik Buterin’s warning about elliptic curve vulnerabilities in recent years, with long-term doubt, which encourages the proposal of post-Fusaka cryptography redesign.

With the trading ending on November 21, Ethereum has been holding onto $2,820, the loosest grip between despair and rescue. To contrarians, this bloodletting is reminiscent of the capitulation of 2022, which gave birth to a bull run. As Fusaka wakes up in December and the whale shadows grow, the narrative of ETH shifts towards survival the resurrection. The current depth has the potential to shape the future in the ruthless ecosystem of crypto.